Day: September 16, 2008

But Joy Behar knew better

Sometime, in the far future, when they are writing the definitive history of that mysterious entity known as the United States of America, you know, the one that went through this odd, transformative period that no one can really explain, still, even here in the far future; when they are writing that history, they’ll come to the point where they write “But Joy Behar knew better.” Joy Behar, defender of (whatever’s left of) The Republic. She’ll be right there by Cicero.

Richard Cohen, of all people, lays it out for us in the WaPo. Check this out:

Last week, one of the co-hosts [of The View], Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig – an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

“We know that those two ads are untrue,” Behar said. “They are lies.”

[…]

“Actually, they are not lies,” he said.

Actually, they are.

Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Read that last line again. And then read it again. And then rub your eyes (but not too hard). And then double check the link above isn’t some sort of Russian redirect intended to cleverly sap your accounts and steal the time-share you’ve got way out in Bermooda. “Actually, they are.” See, that wasn’t too hard. But our man Cohen ins’t going to leave it there and start in with the hacktackular James Carville™ excuses. No sir:

[Continuing directly] McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most.

[…]

[McCain’s] opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir – the person in whose hands he would leave the country – is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

[…]

McCain was […] going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can – as he did in South Carolina – renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won’t work.

God save Joy Behar. She was The One who could get through to Our Media Elite, the Serious People who run things around here. Too late for the Republic, and all that, but at least we may be spared the final indignity of going down in a blaze of “glory” under a McCain/Palin administration.

This Is Who We Are

Another example of why we fail:

As it happens, Ford, the struggling American car company (in certain ways, probably more centrally “American” to most citizens than even longtime industrial titan GM, nay “The General”), has a new model of the Fiesta coming out that seats five (well, five people the size of Winona Ryder, anyway) and gets 65 mpg. You’re saying “wow, they’ve finally gotten the message and are going to deliver ‘Mericans a car that is relatively inexpensive and gas efficient.”

Except that you’d be wrong. Only selling that car in Europe. You see, it runs on diesel. Ford doesn’t think it can sell enough of the engines (they put the break-even number at 350,000/yr) to warrant building an engine plant (in Mexico, natch); the dollar is just too much of a banana republic currency to merit the importation of the engines/cars from England where they’re made.

All quite sensible. Except that Ford is going to go out of business (at least as we know it today) with this model. Time to bet the company, gentlemen. You are not going to be in a better position to do so next week or next year. As the article notes, VW and Mercedes are investing heavily in clean diesel, as is Nissan. They’ll be first to market in the US, and it is they that will reap the rewards. Create your market. Engage in risk. Figure out a way to sell those 350,000 motors. Otherwise you’ll be a division of Tata motors before you know it.

It seems clear now that it will take the utter obliteration of the US auto industry to save the US auto industry. And, in the not-too-distant future, Silicon Valley will be more associated with cars than Detroit. That’s where people are taking the chances, after all.