American Sieve Trampled By Deranged Elephants

... Mr McConnell, who did not have a particularly prominent role during the Bush presidency, finds himself at the heart of an increasingly ideological debate. “We’re at something of a tipping point on where we go next as American civilisation,” Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina, told MSNBC on Thursday. “This string of bail-outs threatens the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed.” Mr Sanford said the US had “two automotive industries”, comparing Detroit’s “excessive costs, payrolls, [and] union contracts” and “the rest of the automotive industry across America, which, in many cases, is doing much, much better; in some cases, even thriving”.

No, of course not, Mr. Bones, the Financial Times man did not actually say ‘deranged’. He said

Since Mr McConnell’s Republicans will command at least 41 Senate seats, he is set to play a big role in frustrating or facilitating the new administration’s legislative agenda. “Beginning next month McConnell is the leader of the Republican party in the US,” said a Republican aide. “But he is not an imposing personality and the party is confused about what to make of the economic reality the country finds itself in.” At present, many Republicans voice a mixture of confusion and regret on whether the $700bn troubled asset relief programme, backed by many of their representatives in the Senate, is effective or counterproductive. While the Senate has prided itself as a voice of moderation, President George W. Bush’s influence over the chamber has ebbed. Many Republicans from the south are also less sympathetic to Detroit. In such circumstances, Mr McConnell finds himself at the heart of an ideological debate.

That was written before the scalawag Solons actually shot themselves in the vast emptiness between their ears, but it is considerably better done than Aunt Nitsy's or the Wall Street Jingos’ strictly post mortem accounts from the scene of the crime. Possibly in a follow-up the FT will name names? If the New York Times Company is informed enough to scribble

"[T]he Senate failed to win the 60 votes need to bring up the auto rescue plan for consideration. The Senate voted 52 to 35 with 10 Republicans joining 40 Democrats and 2 independents in favor,

then the NYTC must be able to list the thirty-five Heroes of Destructive Creationism™ if it liked, despite the last gasp being a "merely procedural vote" from the parliamentary viewpoint. The ten traitors to the Party of Grant and Hoover almost certainly come from Rust Belt country, not very far from Lake Michigan.

What's that, sir? . . . Well, no, at this point I think it does not matter what the Serene House of Kennebunkport-Crawford wants or dreads. Destructive Creationism is most unlikely to be sentimental about its own lame ducks: "Toss ’em off the Sledge of Palin’ to the wolves!" seems to be the operative bumble-sticker at the moment.

Up in Wasillastán the Big Party kiddies may still think that automobiles grow on trees, though I suppose it does not matter what the kiddies think as long as automobiles still engender petroleum rents for the AK public sector. Anyway, Neocomrade Governess Sarah Louise Heath-Paling has not, that I know of, put in her two cents about General Motors and Chrysler. The elephants may be dyin’ of "a mixture of confusion and regret," yet they still know by instinct in their hearts, as their Neocomrade Senator B. Goldwater might have phrased it, that Neocomradess Heath-Paling’s notions on any grown-up subject are not worth solicitin’, quite as trashy as those of Neocomrade POTUS George XLIII, now that the latter is as good as out the door in a pine box for burial. As the Financial Times analyst analysed, Neocomrade Senator A. M. "McConnell is the leader of the Republican party in the US" now.

The Château Kennebunkport aspect of the ever-august Serene House is more to the point at the moment than its Rancho Crawford aspect. (At least Daddy had a brain to shoot out, for Pete’s sake!) The most obvious way to score last night’s human event would be "GOP 35, America 10." Since you just heard me demand a list of names of the loyal scalawags (35) and the treacherous panderers to constituents (10), I do not deny that that scoring system interests me. Nevertheless in the longer term some scoring like "Voodoo 1, Economics 0" is likely to be more significant. The Party of Big Management has decided that it no longer cares to be the party of General Motors. I presume everybody at the Union League Club of Detroit (or whatever they call it) must think she has fallen down a rabbit hole to Wonderland. And, needless to report, good ol’ Charlie Wilson rotates in his forgotten grave. The grave the scalawags just spit on.

So, then, it is to be Voodoo Redux with the Heroes of Destructive Creationism. "I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa" is out. Ring in "We simply cannot ask the American taxpayer to subsidize failure!" As Neocomrade Senator A. M. Mitchell of KY phrased it yesterday.

There is quite a lot of irony the picturesque in the neocomrade Minority Leader’s new voodoo. It would appears that thirty-five neo-scalawag pols at Washington City understand better what is good for GM at Detroit than the staff and management of GM understand themselves. If America’s party were to take that line, it would be only about half a second before Dr. Limbaugh and Neocomrade O'Reilly bark and bellow somethin’ fierce with the word ‘nanny’ in it. Since it is only America's Otherparty that does it, I shall have to wait a few hours to hear from the witch doctors of no spin. Obviously they will want to award Neocomrade A. M. McConnell some sort of virtual medal, but under the circumstances I cannot guess exactly how the citation will go. To bark ’n’ bellow "Our GOP Washington knows better than anybody's mere Detroit" presumably will not quite do.

To bark "Our GOP Tokyo understands the proper Big Management of the American automobile industry better than anybody at Detroit" would be even worse. Yet it would not be 100% fair to accuse the neoscalawags of havin’ sold out to the Japs approximately in time to honor Pearl Harbour Day. Lemme see, how did the Jingos of Murdoch handle the Oriental picturesqueness angle? . . . Hmm, no mention of it at all, unless "Markets reacted quickly in Asia. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index extended mild morning losses after the proposal failed" counts, which it does not. [1] It appears that the staff and management at Osaka do not like the New Voodoo much better than their counterparts at Detroit like it. Still, the neocomrade and his scalawags may conceivably be consultin’ the long-term interests of Nissan and Toyota and Honda: a certain amount of turbulence is inevitable whilst the "Titanic" is actually sinking -- "the possible impact of the decision on the US economy and their own sales there" -- but after Destructive Creationism has done its bit, obviously competitors in the transportation industry will be better off. And so will their politicians. You don't have to be Neocomrade Senator Professor Doctor Ph. Gramm of TX to work out that sum in political arithmetic, by gum!

Perhaps the good folks at Osaka have not actually been consulted by the post-McCain crop of GOP geniuses, however? Voodoo bein’ what it is, I incline to suspect that neocomrade McConnell and the scalawag boys are just goin’ by what they think the Homeland -- nay, the Dixieland -- employees of the Osaka folks think Osaka is likely to think. The genuine Nissan and Toyota and Honda article are inveterate corporatists in something like Mussolini's sense, who would be very sorry to see GM and Chrysler go. (The salient magic word is zaibatsu, Mr. Bones, and I am amazed that I remembered it right. Take that, Alzheimer!)

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A new age calls for fresh faces, and it has begun to sound as if Neocomrade Governor M. Sanford from Calhoun country is volunteerin’ to be

poster boy for Voodoo Redux: "This string of bail-outs threatens the very market-based system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."

Well, somebody from the Party of Goldwater and Atwater was bound to say that, so why not Marky?

As long as the lad does not threaten secession in order to secure the yesterday's system of his choice, thee and I need not object to Marky, Mr. Bones. It would be interesting, though, if some MSM fiend were to ask him whether he sees no threat to his cherished Peculiar Institution in that fact that such bail-outs have become necessary. Or, if he insists, in the fact that so many Crawfordite cowpokers and Kennebunkport gentry and Wall Street Jingos and Osakan bigmanagers and Goldman Sachsites and Detroit Union League Club klutzes and assorted other persons not inveterately hostile to the Party of Grant have mistakenly come to think the bail-outs necessary.

(( It appears that Detroit does not have a Union League Club. At least the City of Klutzes got that right! Now that the Party of Grant is become as Homelandic as pecan pie and Gone with the Wind, ’twere better not to remember when it was not: "History is bunk!" "That was then, this is now!!" "Palin', PALIN', PALIN'!!!" ))

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[1] "The American dollar, and US stock futures for the Friday open in New York, all declined sharply immediately after the news , while Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan each fell more than 11%, not least because of the possible impact of the decision on the US economy and their own sales there. This set the tone for the rest of the trading day in Asia. The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index had fallen 3.5% by the close of trading in Tokyo, reducing its weekly gain to 6.9%."

Oh, well, you ‘extend’ ‘mild’ far enough, eventually you get to ‘sharply’, no doubt about it.