Bailout Watch 482: Frank Rich is Confused. Thank God.

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

This GM bailout mishegos is driving the mainstream media meshugganah. To wit: conservative pretty boy Sean Hannity has been GM’s bitch for years, happily driving tweaked freebies and working plugs for GM product into his rants and “unscripted” comments. Now that his sponsor is toast, Mr. “We Love GM” has to defend the American automaker (to maintain his flag-wrapped appeal) and criticize Barack Obama for his corporate interventionism—knowing full well that the multi-million dollar Hannity–GM gravy train would have derailed months ago if not for your tax money. New York Times columnist Frank Rich may not be boxed in by GM payola, but the man’s clearly conflicted. “Even Rick Wagoner’s Firing Got Lousy Mileage” starts by kvetching that “pitchfork-bearing populists” (as opposed to Mac-wielding elitists) weren’t satisfied when President Obama brought them the head of Richard M. Wagoner. Although he, Rich, is. Mister! Are you following this?

For Frank Rich, Red Ink Rick’s defenestration was just desserts for the man who “embraced the Hummer.” And yet Rich accepts fortress Detroit’s inequality claim: shit-canning Wagoner was patently unfair given Wall Street’s perfidy. What’s more, Rich adheres to the idea that Obama’s CEO-i-cide was, at its core, political theater.

Few disputed the judgment of the Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm, that Wagoner was a “sacrificial lamb,” a symbolic concession to public rage ordered by a president who had to look tough after being blindsided by the A.I.G. bonuses. Detroit’s chief executive had to be beheaded so that the masters of the universe at the top of Wall Street’s bailed-out behemoths might survive.

On this point even the left and the right could agree.

Frank, who are the few? Detroit supporters? Bailout detractors? Pitchfork-bearing populists? Wall Street money men run amok? Conservatives? Liberals? Huey friggin’ Long? Whose fault is this anyway?

Why is there any sympathy whatsoever for a Detroit C.E.O. who helped wreck his company, ruined investors and cost thousands of hard-working underlings their jobs, when there is no mercy for those who did the same on Wall Street? Might we, too, have a double standard? Could we still be in denial of the reality that greed and irresponsibility were not an exclusive Wall Street franchise during our national bender?

Hang on. Is there a double standard re: retribution for Detroit’s and Wall Street’s n’er-do-wells? Or, as the Brits say, is it all much of a muchness? Rich tiptoes around anything resembling a coherent argument, and revels in the pleasures of spreading Bailout Nation FUD.

The parallels between G.M. and the likes of Citigroup are uncanny. Much as bloated financial institutions gorged on mortgage-backed derivatives even when the underlying fundamentals made no rational sense, so G.M. doubled down on sure-to-be obsolete S.U.V.’s and trucks to serve a market transitorily enthralled by them. Much as the housing boom’s collapse left the get-rich-quick holders of AAA-rated mortgage derivatives with worthless paper, so the oil price spike left consumers trapped with self-indulgent, wealth-depleting gas guzzlers. In both instances, the customers were not entirely innocent.

Wait. So it’s OUR fault. Yes! Yes! Tax me! Hurt me!

In the unsatisfying aftermath of Rick Wagoner’s demise, we must rid ourselves of the illusion that there’s a rigid separation between Wall Street and what John Rich calls “the real world.” Any citizen or business that overspent or overborrowed in the bubble subscribed to its reckless culture. That culture has crumbled everywhere now, and a new economic order will have to rise from its ruins.

Wait; so it’s our fault and business. Huh. What about those credit default swaps guys? The ones made out like bandits when a democratic Congress rolled back the banking laws, and turned a blind eye to the chicanery that followed?

Anyway, let’s not get too technical. What’s with this “new economic order”? Pitchfork-bearing populist, Mac-wielding elitist that I am, I don’t like the sound of that. Nor this:

Change is hard. Change is traumatic. Sending a juicy C.E.O. — or six — to the gallows is at most a crowd-pleasing opening act to the heavy lifting of reform and rebuilding we still await.

I know Rich likes a powerful metaphor as much as the next curmudgeon, but that’s some scary ass shit he’s putting out there. Include me out.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Carlos.negros Carlos.negros on Apr 06, 2009

    50merc wrote: " . . . there’s really no good reason to drag in Abu Ghraib. That’s like inserting a comment about abortion into a discussion of transmissions." I agree. And there is really no good reason to accuse Frank Rich of being serious when he wrote about sending a CEO to the gallows.

  • Robert Farago Robert Farago on Apr 06, 2009

    carlos.negros As my wife says, if it's a joke, how come I'm not laughing?

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