THE G.O.P. LOADED THE GUN BUT THE U.A.W. PULLED THE TRIGGER

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The “Car Czar” loan bill is dead. And the official General Motors death watch begins.

Why did this have to happen?

Perhaps because Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and the United Auto Workers’ Ron Gettelfinger are in a pitched contest for the title “Dumbest Man in America.”

Advantage: Gettelfinger.

The U.S. Senate defeated the last legislative hope to save the Detroit 3 from the crisis that the Federal government mostly created because (a) Shelby’s Republicans wouldn’t agree to a short-term fix without a “short bus” full of “poison pills” (if at all) and (b) Gettelfinger’s myopic U.A.W. took the bait by refusing to concede to market-based wages and benefits before 2011.

The U.A.W.’s intractability on “givebacks” stoked the “Shelby-can’ts” argument that the Detroit 3 lack long-term viability like a steam engine on liquid oxygen.

Clearly, the U.A.W. would rather play “chicken” with a federal bankruptcy judge than do anything to help G.M. survive its 101st year.

The U.A.W.’s refusal to see reality has probably doomed thousands of American jobs and has put the U.S. economy on the brink of depression. But perhaps Gettelfinger’s troops would rather lose their jobs than take “common-sense” pay and benefit cuts that would bring the Detroit 3's costs in line with the Japanese invaders plants.

The U.A.W. failed to support their “pattern contract” level of benefits in the marketplace by failing to unionize the Japanese invader plants.

The U.A.W. failed to help the Detroit 3 become competitive when many believed that “Team Japan” was gaining the upper hand in a not-so-free trade world.

The U.A.W. resisted efforts to make the Detroit 3 plants run more like the Japanese invader plants and resisted reasonable restructuring proposals

The U.A.W. failed to make the case for buying American to the general public, allowing the Consumer Reports “appliance motoring” mentality to take hold and causing the loss of an entire generation of consumers to Japan.

The U.A.W. failed to rally a skeptical, “bailout weary” electorate to the essential defense of America’s most basic industry. Unlike banks – which take a pot of cash and a handful of elite M.B.A.- types trained in banking to replace – a complex, industrial colossus such as General Motors requires years and a massive, almost cost-prohibitive undertaking to replicate. And while Congress threw $700,000,000,000.00 to “save” the financial industry, The U.A.W. failed to persuade the political system to invest a paltry TWO PERCENT OF AS MUCH to help the Detroit 3 cope with the worst credit and sales crisis since the Great Depression.

Now the U.A.W. has failed to understand that in a “war” against the government-subsidized, predatory Japanese invaders, sacrifices are necessary. Instead they basically chose to “strike” any hope for keeping the Detroit 3 intact and alive to fight on when economic conditions improved.

To be sure, GM made plenty of other mistakes: Killing off brand autonomy . . . weak small car offerings in the 1970s and early 1980s . . . too much “badge engineering” . . . too many fleet sales . . . not enough “fight” in the entry-level and youth markets . . . not enough “continuous improvement” . . . accountant-driven cost cutting and delays in product cycles . . . not realizing soon enough the public relations benefits of the money-losing EV-1 and hybrid electrics . . . not continuing to boost efficiency even as fuel costs abated in the 1990s . . . sacrificing leadership in styling, design and technology on the altar of conservative quarterly returns . . . promoting too many bean counters and not enough “car guys” . . . not adapting well enough to the huge regulatory burdens assessed by Congress and the states.

It’s a death by a thousand cuts – some of them self-inflicted. Most of them caused by meddling Federal policies.

But GM's biggest mistake was in believing that the U.A.W. and Congress would come to their collective senses when it counted most.

Now only George W. Bush has the last clear chance to avoid the burning down of the American auto industry in Chapter 11.

Will he act in time?