Editorial: Bailout Watch 223: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

While Detroit News columnist Daniel Howes gently chides Motown’s hometown heroes– even as they continue to bleed to death all over his carpet– The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank kicks the Big 2.8’s CEO while they’re down. But good. The WaPo scribe warms-up with a few gentle toe jabs, simply repeating the Big 2.8’s testimony regarding their recent travel arrangements. “There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands,’ Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. ‘It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?” Fortress Detroit please note: no one mentioned the rejuvenating possibilities of a “convenient plane crash.” Oops.

“I’m going to ask the three executives here to raise their hand if they flew here commercial,’ he [Ackerman] said. All still at the witness table. ‘Second,’ he continued, ‘I’m going ask you to raise your hand if you’re planning to sell your jet . . . and fly back commercial.’ More stillness. ‘Let the record show no hands went up,’ Sherman grandstanded.” After this extended session of petard-related self-hoisting, Milbank really puts the boot in…

“It was a display of stone-cold tone-deafness by the automaker chiefs. In their telling, they have no responsibility for the auto industry’s current mess. Threatening the nation with economic Armageddon if they are not given government aid, they spent much of the session declaring what a fine job they’ve been doing in Detroit.”

Ay, there’s the rub. As the old Jewish expression goes, if you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich?

TTAC identified this dilemma from the git-go. Our Ken Elias exhorted the execs to “man-up” and tell the truth. But how could they do that? Admitting failure publicly would be like admitting failure publicly. In the “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” culture of Detroit, admitting weakness is like cutting open an artery in shark-infested waters. Or allowing Dorothy to douse you in a bucket of water. Or letting yourself get hit by a freight train. If you catch my drift.

Back to Daniel Howes for a moment, for it’s clear that even Detroit cheerleaders understand that there’s a disconnect between the CEO’s Pumba-like prevarications (“you gotta put your behind in your past”) and their abject inability to sell a brighter future to their intended public benefactors.

“Added Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y.: ‘When my wife has a problem with the foreign car she drives, they bend over backwards for her. You all aren’t responsive to your customers. You don’t want to put your last tourniquet to a dead guy. Tell me what’s going to be different in three months.'”

The fact that Howes doesn’t even bother to list their reply, or answer the question on the CEOs behalf is, perhaps, the most telling part of his commentary. In this Howes mirrors Motown’s progress through the stages of grief. They’re out of denial, asking the right questions of themselves. But they’re just now entering the bargaining phase. Acceptance and hope is a long, long way off.

Meanwhile, that bridge loan to a brighter day is about to collapse. If it hasn’t already.

As in any great tragedy, the fundamental flaw that’s assured Detroit’s doom is hubris. Right from the the beginning of this do-or-die bailout campaign, GM’s Rick Wagoner decided to be the smartest guy in the room. His newly developed eye twitch betrayed his suprise that his machine gun bullet point assault failed to find its mark. Not to mention his accountant’s inability to grasp the bigger political picture.

“When Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) tried to find out when GM would run out of cash, Wagoner hemmed and hawed until the lawmaker protested that “I don’t quite understand what the hell you just told me.” When Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) asked about GM’s outlook for the quarter, Wagoner informed him that “we don’t provide financial guidance in earnings.” Would Rick talk that way to a “normal” banker, as opposed to, say, the United State taxpayer? The sad part: yes, he would. The even sadder part: they listened. Well, right until they didn’t.

And them Milbank absolutely buries the troika of bailout beggars.

“So it was hard to feel sorry for the executives when Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), late in the hearing, reminded them again that “the symbolism of the private jet is difficult,” and mischievously asked the witnesses whether, in another symbolic gesture, they would be willing to work for $1 a year, as Nardelli has offered to do.

‘I don’t have a position on that today,’ demurred Wagoner (2007 total compensation: $15.7 million).

‘I understand the intent, but I think where we are is okay,’ said Mulally ($21.7 million).

‘I’m asking about you,’ Roskam pressed.

‘I think I’m okay where I am,’ Mulally said.”

Think again, boys. Think again.