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Daniel Henninger says, “Well of course we’re heading to fiscal cliff. The GOP is negotiating with a bargaining neophyte.”
… The inability of this Congress and this president to compromise on anything, now or at any time in the past four years, is itself a problem worthy of some thought.
Here’s one thought: The main reason there isn’t, and may never be, a solution on the fiscal cliff is that Barack Obama doesn’t know how to do a political compromise. Where in his career did Barack Obama ever learn the art of the political deal? Nowhere.
Recall the famous Blair House summit he called early in 2010 amid the legislating over ObamaCare. Lamar Alexander, Tom Coburn, Paul Ryan and other Republicans talked about wonkish compromises. All of it, every single idea, blew right by the president. Naturally the legislation got zero GOP votes. A kid running for high-school president could have gotten more opposition votes than that.
Presidents, kings, queens, generals all have accomplished a modus vivendi with their opponents and mortal enemies. Until now. What deal of Clintonesque majesty has Barack Obama ever pulled off?
The fiscal-cliff negotiation is a train driven by an engineer who doesn’t know how to use the brake, doesn’t know where the brake is and doesn’t care. His idea of politics is giving campaign speeches outside Washington to assemble a Sandy of public sentiment that will blow congressional Republicans off the cliff.
Politics ain’t beanbag, but it also isn’t just about politics. While Barack Obama may think his election mandate includes the ruin of the Republican Party, Republicans seeking a strategy of self-preservation should assert their refusal to participate in the ruin of the nation. As it is, the fiscal cliff has degenerated into a familiar Beltway melodrama in which the media reduce the whole thing to which party gets shafted. As to the health of the gasping American economy, well, whatever. …
The story of the sinking of the Bounty in der Spiegel is told a little too breathlessly for Pickerhead’s taste, but it is still worth reading. It seemed really strange the ship was transiting the Atlantic during a hurricane. It turns out there was some logic involved. Stupidity too.
As Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast in late October, Captain Robin Walbridge wanted to save his ship, the legendary Bounty. He set out to sea to ride out the storm — a decision which ended in disaster. He lost the ship, a crewmember and his own life.
It was still a mild fall day in New London, Connecticut, when Captain Robin Walbridge stepped on deck to prepare his crew for the possibility of dying. It was 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25.
About 1,200 nautical miles to the south, Hurricane Sandy, billed as the storm of the century, was making its way northward from Cuba. With wind speeds of more than 100 miles per hour (165 kilometers per hour), the storm was rushing across the ocean, headed for the east coast of the United States. At least 70 people had already died in the Caribbean, after being drowned, buried alive or struck with debris.
Captain Walbridge had a decision to make. He could leave the ship, the Bounty, in the harbor at New London, where it would be tossed back and forth by the storm and would presumably sustain serious damage. Or he could try to save the ship by taking it out into the Atlantic, thereby putting his life and the lives of his 15 crewmembers on the line.
Walbridge wanted to save his ship. A ship versus 16 human lives. How can such a decision be explained?
It wasn’t just any ship that he had under his command. Walbridge was the captain of the Bounty, a replica of the most famous sailing vessel in seafaring history, and a treasure of the Hollywood world. Legendary films like “Mutiny on the Bounty,” starring Marlon Brando, and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” with Johnny Depp, had been made on board the Bounty. A legend like that can’t just be left at the mercy of the weather. …
… Captain Walbridge was 63, a quiet, contemplative man with thinning gray hair and glasses. He had stood at the helm of the Bounty for 17 years, and it was hard to say whether he was more in love with the ship or his wife, although he did spend most of his time on the ship. The crew changed, and so did its owners, but Walbridge remained.
People who have sailed across the world’s oceans with Walbridge praise him for his modesty, levelheadedness and patience. He taught young people how to sail, and he took disabled children out to sea.
But there must have been another Captain Walbridge, one who overestimated himself and his ship, and who felt invincible after all those years at sea. In one interview, he talked about “chasing” hurricanes. It was important not to sail in front of a hurricane, but to stay behind it, in the southeastern quadrant, in which case it would make for a smooth ride, he said. He had sailed through 20-meter (66-foot) waves that way, Walbridge said — not exactly the words of a cautious captain. …
Andrew Malcolm treats us to the story of another green energy failure from the failure capital of the world – Washington, DC.
You won’t hear much about it elsewhere today. But from some downtown Chicago law offices will come the distinct sound of one more nail being driven into the coffin of Barack Obama’s green energy giveaway loans.
A123 Systems will be auctioned off. It’s a Michigan lithium ion battery maker which declared bankruptcy back in October, the same day it cashed another $1 million check from the crack Obama investment team.
A123 is one of those notorious bad bets like Solyndra that the Obama administration poured billions of taxpayer dollars into, allegedly with the hope it would launch a vibrant clean energy industrial sector. As Gov. Romney pointed out during the presidential debates that same month, many of the recipients of those federal loan guarantees just happened to belong to campaign finance bundlers for the same Barack Obama.
A123, an 11-year-old firm founded to manufacture batteries for electric cars and utilities, had received $133 million of its promised $250.1 million loan grants before the bankruptcy, mainly to build a new facility in Michigan.
Just more wasted taxpayer money, right? Another reason for Obama’s coveted tax hikes come next year.
But wait! There’s more! A leading suitor for A123′s remaining assets is Wanxiang Group Corp., a $13 billion firm that’s China’s largest automotive components maker.
So, let’s get this straight: Obama bashes Romney for being a successful (and, whispering, wealthy) venture capitalist so successfully picking so many corporate winners. But Obama gives away money to an American company to develop American battery technology and manufacturing on American soil for American workers. A123 flops financially, as have almost three dozen other hand-picked Obama greenies receiving financial food-stamps from that wheeling-dealing Chicago crowd.
And a private Chinese company comes along to buy up the pieces. …