New Op-ed at Fox News: Obama's Driving the Car Now

The piece starts off this way:

In a truly unprecedented move, the Obama administration has gotten into hand picking the CEO of a private company. This has never happened in US history. It is also something that doesn't seem to have occurred in leftist Europe at least since World War II.

Obama claimed Monday that he has "no interest or intention" of running the auto industry. But, whatever Obama's rhetoric, it is now his industry. Picking CEOs is just the surface. In Obama's speech he boasted that "my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan," but who is Obama kidding? These are not suggestions, these are orders. When Obama claims that he is "absolutely committed . . . to meet one goal . . . building the next generation of clean cars," his top down industrial policy doesn't care that hybrid sales have fallen by two-thirds since April, much faster than overall car sales.

Obama is even micromanaging Chrysler's merger talks with Fiat -- for example, determining what Fiat engines will be built in the United States. . . . .

I wish that I had seen this when I was writing the piece. Of course, Obama has "no interest or intention" of running the auto industry.
Obama Orders Chevrolet and Dodge Out Of NASCAR - Car News

Or that I had seen this:

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites because CNN decided to do an in-depth expose last night to find out if anybody on the Obama auto team has any experience in the automobile business. They talked to Austan Goolsbee, one of these economic advisors, one of these Ivy League egghead members of the Obama administration, and Blitzer's question was this: "Okay, you have 21 members in your auto industry task force. None of them have any real auto industry experience. Five of them are cabinet secretaries. Nearly half of your members hold economic posts. Seven have ties to energy and the environment. Even the Treasury's senior advisor on auto issues, Ron Bloom, has no direct auto industry background. One member of the auto industry task force is joining us now, Austan Goolsbee. Is that fair that none of you has any real direct auto industry experience?"

GOOLSBEE: I don't think it's fair. I believe that Ron Bloom does have a significant amount of auto experience and that is within the government task force. The other thing that I'd say is the president made clear in his remarks, the US government is not trying to get into the business of running an automobile company.

RUSH: Oh.

GOOLSBEE: The intention here is to create the conditions that will be a bridge allowing these companies to restructure and become viable enterprises again --

BLITZER: Do you know...?

GOOLSBEE: -- in the future.

BLITZER: Do you know off the top of your head what Ron Bloom's auto experience industry was?

GOOLSBEE: Umm... I... No, I don't know exact-- I believe that it was, uhhh, advising the unions and in working in the auto industry, but I'm (pause) not an auto executive so I... That's not my area.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to double-check that.

RUSH: Way to go, Wolf. Way to be on the case out there, baby. The original premise is fine. There's nobody on this task force has the slightest idea how to build a car. There's nobody on this task force that loves cars. There's nobody on this task force that is a car guy. They're all a bunch of brainiac eggheads, and they're over there to assert control. So Blitzer then says, "Well, look, has the White House been involved in the compensation package of Rick Wagoner, GM?"

GOOLSBEE: I don't know the details on that.

BLITZER: Would that be something logical, though? Would that be -- given the enormous amount of taxpayer money going into GM?

GOOLSBEE: Uh, I'm not going to speculate on those matters. I don't know anything about it.