OBAMA'S ROSE GARDEN CAFE STEAMROLLER

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The Wall Street Jounnal wonders aloud about the coalition behind the Obamanator-Governator-EnviroNazi "deal" on the 2012-2016 Corporate Average Fuel Economy hike in an editorial entitled "Car Crazy." Of particular interest to Ford fans is the following observation:

Ford and the other foreign-owned auto makers, which will have to raise private capital to make changes that U.S. taxpayers will fund at Chrysler and GM, no doubt want to maintain their political viability by not standing athwart this regulatory steamroller.

We wish these folks luck "working together" with the Obama auto-design team. One thing seems certain by 2016: Taxpayers will be paying Detroit to make the cars Americans don't want, and then they will pay again either through (trust us) a gas tax or with a purchase subsidy. Even the French must think we're nuts.

This will doubly apply if FoMoCo is forced to dilute the Mustang (e.g. no V8, no RWD) in sacrifice to Obama and environuts' false gods of "climate change."

On the other hand, given Billy Ford's shilling for draconian federal fuel taxes and anti-collector "Ca$h for Clunker$" bailout money, Truth With Speedzzter wonders whether FoMoCo's emerging business plan is predicated upon becoming part of what Bjorn Lomborg describes as a "climate-industrial" complex:

Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.

The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."

This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.

Whether Ford is avoiding being steamrollered or whether caving into the climate change madness is a strategy calculated to enrich Ford by driving up vehicle margins remains to be seen. But either way, the Rose Garden Steamroller flattened grassroots automotive interests.