Even though the Republicans’ response to Obama’s auto plan is all over the map, they agree that the firing of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is a travesty.
Republicans did agree on one thing — they were uncomfortable with the idea that the White House was ousting Wagoner, the CEO of GM for the past nine years.
“If, in fact, Wagoner resigned because somebody in government said, ‘You have to resign,’ then I think we have nationalized the auto industry, at least GM, and I think that’s bad to have the government have a socialized car industry,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told POLITICO.
Set aside the merits of Chuck Grassley’s argument. If the one thing that the GOP can agree on is that it is socialism for the government to fire a totally incompetent CEO whose company is on government-funded life support, then how do you think they are doing politically in this whole debate?
I’d like to see a poll of how many Americans think the government should bailout corporations without removing the management that ran those corporations into the ground. If you think about the AIG bonuses controversy, people weren’t making distinctions about capitalism versus socialism. They were just howling mad at AIG for losing all the money in the world and they didn’t want anyone that was even two-steps removed from those decisions getting a dime of taxpayer dollars (even if they had already performed the work they were being compensated for). If anything defined the AIG blowup it was a refusal to make fine distinctions about culpability, the law, or even the Constitution. People just wanted a pound of flesh, and they got it.
Now, again, I’m not talking the merits but only the politics. Does the GOP really want to be on the record moaning about a CEO getting shit-canned in this environment? A guy with a $20 million retirement package?
For the Democrats, this is like Derek Jeter playing tee-ball.