Regular readers of MULLINGS know that I am not the least bit shy about taking credit for the thinnest sliver, of the smallest smidgeon, of the tiniest dot of evidence that I might have possibly been correct about something.
Well, here we go again. On Friday, I brazenly wrote a column titled, Kiss the Money Goodbye in which I wrote:
Mark my words. Before this is all over GM will be a Chinese-controlled (if not outright Chinese-owned) car company. And we can kiss our $52 billion zài jiàn [more-or-less Chinese for "good bye."]
My point was Obama took $82 billion of our money and gave it to Chrysler and GM and I didn't think we were going to see much of it back.
The bailout of the auto industry, by the way, was really a bailout of the United Auto Workers Union. As Obama said yesterday,
"We … took steps to prevent the rapid dissolution of the American auto industry, which faced a crisis partly of its own making, to prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs during an already fragile time."
Yesterday a piece on the Detroit News webpage written by David Shepardson claimed:
The Obama administration will tell Congress Wednesday that it expects to lose about $30 billion of the $82 billion government bailout of the auto industry, two administration officials familiar with the report said today.
Let's go to the calculator.
A couple of months ago I bought a Ford Focus which had a sticker price of about $20,000. Let's use that because it makes the math easier.
At 20 grand a car, for thirty billion dollars the government could have bought 1.5 MILLION automobiles for worthy Americans.
Like you. And me.
And, for those of you who are keeping track, Obama gave another $13.5 billion to GM's finance arm: GMAC. Who knows if we'll ever see a dime of that back.
Next item: The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is a Democrat from Michigan, John Conyers. Mr. Conyers is among the most Liberal members of the Democratic caucus and is the second longest serving Member of the House.
Conyers has been pretty open about his disdain for President Obama to the point where Obama, according to Molly Hooper's piece in The Hill newspaper, "picked up the phone several weeks ago to find out why Conyers was 'demeaning' him.
Republicans demean Obama just about every day; just about every time they hit the coffee machine in the Cloakroom. But, they're pretty far to the President's right so that's not much of a surprise.
But, someone like Conyers dissing Obama is a very different story. According to The Hill report, when Conyers told Obama that it was "an honest difference of opinion" the President said, "Well, let's talk about it."
However, Conyers said he "wasn't in the mood to chat."
Hooper wrote, Conyers said he
"was 'getting tired of saving Obama's can in the White House,' after progressive Democrats were forced to vote for a healthcare bill that did not call for a 'robust public option' and includes language opposed by abortion-rights supporters." Finally.
As if having to admit he has lost nearly as much money as Bernie Maddoff and is in a public fight with a senior Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives wasn't enough, that pesky, low-rent polling firm, Gallup, announced that Obama's approval records had sunk to a new low at 47 percent.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, compared Gallup's numbers to a child with a crayon saying,
"You know, I mean I'm sure a six year old with a crayon could do something not unlike that. I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is the daily Gallup trend. I don't pay a lot of attention to meaninglessness."
Yeah, well, Robert Gibbs might not pay attention to a little-known start-up polling firm like Gallup, but I guarantee you that every Member of Congress running for re-election next November has got Obama's numbers memorized.
The tracking poll released last night showed Obama bouncing back to 50 percent approval, but his disapprove is at 45 percent. Only five percent of the population has no opinion.
As the President of All the World prepares yet again to leave the U.S. to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize and solve Global Warming in Copenhagen he is leaving behind a country which appears to be unconvinced that he can lead it out of its troubles.
Not a good week for Obama. Not a good week at all.
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