Failure is Not an Option [* Some Exceptions Apply]

Sometimes, even the wiliest of politicians just pitches a slow and easy one across the plate.

So it was with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican.

In their eagerness to deliver a swift kick to those devil automobile unions -- even if it means playing Dr. Kevorkian to Detroit -- Senate Republicans killed the auto bailout measure, and McConnell delivered this irresistible line:

''Republicans will not allow taxpayers to subsidize failure.''

Um, Senator? One word -- Iraq. Price tag: maybe $600 billion and going nowhere but up. What's that work out to, 10 or 15 Detroits?

Does this GOP retusal to tolerate subsidized failure mean the Republicans will give me my Iraq war tax money back? It might just have a better shot at success in Detroit than it did in Baghdad.

Follow Patt Morrison on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Op-ed columnist

Comments

[sixx]

03:11 PM on 12/13/2008

For the Iraq war and Murder INC. Republicans McConnell and Boehner, have $5,000.000.000.000. For U.S. auto makers and workers, $0.

[sixx]

03:02 PM on 12/13/2008

To paraphrase Iraq Viceroy Bremer, you can't expect Iraq accounting in third world Detroit.

[Luigi53102]

12:35 AM on 12/13/2008

Exactly. If Americans are going to pour billions of dollars down a rathole, shouldn't it be an American rathole? Oh, wait, I forgot, we are already doing that with the financial industry.

I, too, would rather take my chances with the auto industry. Especially since every member of the worldwide auto industry is now a victim of the financial industry. Oh yes, the insurance industry also, since AIG has absorbed $150 billion of welfare. Apparently their employees were not being kept busy enough denying valid claims, so they had to put them to work acquiring worthless investments. Good to keep the workers busy, even if they're not unionized.

[SiberianRat]

01:37 PM on 12/12/2008

Amen to the idea of the atrocious waste of money in Iraq (not to mention the unforgivable human cost). However, McConnell was right (gulp) about "failure" in the auto industry. I'm as liberal as they come, but the US auto industry tanked under its own complacency.

[Luigi53102]

12:26 AM on 12/13/2008

You seem to have missed the point. That being hypocrisy.