Some contend there is a silver lining in these bailouts, namely that their inevitable failure will teach the lesson that they don't work and cause our rededication to market principles.

But this ignores that a large percentage of the political class has no fealty to market principles. The Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis of the world are licking their lips in anticipation of the opportunities for government intervention this crisis presents, as Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, brazenly admitted.

In the typically arrogant spirit of social planners, they are poised to micromanage an industry they know less about than they know about balancing the federal budget. Worse still, they refuse to divorce their self-assigned mission of restoring financial stability to the industry from their policy and political goals of imposing environmental mandates and protecting their union voting constituencies.

It's time to take our medicine, even if that means bankruptcy and the restructuring of an industry whose wages have long defied market standards. Any resulting hardships are sad and troubling, but the alternative is worse.

If we don't stop this runaway freight train now, there might be no extricating ourselves from the government planning model, which would be disastrous for America's unique and world-leading prosperity and liberty.

Conservatives better start screaming bloody murder, or the market enemies soon to dominate two of the three branches of the federal government with a lust for the third could build a socialist momentum that would be difficult to restrain, much less reverse.

Enough is enough.