Government Motors At Last

The GM endgame now comes clearly into focus: The sick man of Michigan will declare bankruptcy, the government will buy it, and Big Business and Big Government, whose relationship could formerly be regarded as a series of flirtations that occasionally turned adulterous, have finally filed for divorce from the American citizenry and announced their intention to marry. More disturbing unions have been seen, though not since Catherine the Great paid a visit to the royal stables.

And what will we get for all this? We know little about the future, but that GM will shed American jobs for years to come is a near-certainty. They have already committed to close a number of plants, and Obama's plans to force Americans into smaller cars will deprive American automakers of their primary profit center. We are getting well to the point where it would be cheaper to simply write every GM employee a check for a hundred thousand, tax-free and call it quits.

My sole point of cheer in all this is that just as our president's once-tender sensibilities about military tribunals and offshore detention of suspected terrorists emerged his first 100 days greatly toughened, so the rather sticky business of running GM may prove similarly clarifying. For no American company so thoroughly embodies the vision of European-style social democracy as GM, and for that it is coming now to its logical end.