Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Obama's "Mission Accomplished" Moment at GM

The Obama administration is desperate to declare victory on the auto bailout. As desperate as the Bush administation was to declare vicotry in Iraq two months after it invaded the country. But just as President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" declaration turned into a PR fiasco, so might the Government Motors politically motivated IPO for the company and the Obama administration, writes Reason Foundation senior analyst in her latest Forbes column. Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[R C Dean]

As desperate as the Bush administation was to declare vicotry in Iraq

Hmm. Sounds, I dunno, French. I'm suspicious.

[Gilbert Martin]

"But just as President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" declaration turned into a PR fiasco..."

Bush didn't make a "Mission Accomplished" declaration. The navy personnel on the aircraft carrier that he landed on put up a big "Mission Accomplished" sign on their own and the press then attributed it to Bush making that declaration.

[Jeffersonian]

I doubt that. Presidential photo ops are so tightly stage-managed, it's inconceivable that Bush's gaggle didn't have a hand in putting that up.

[J sub D]

Absolutely. I remeber the speech Bush the Lesser gave to the crew where he pointes out that the mission was merely in its earliest stages and we had seven or eight years and a terabuck or two to go before we stopped killing and being killed in Iraq.

I remember his aides were all over the political talk shows the following Sunday explaing that the job was barely started.

Of course, I was doing LOTS of acid back then.

[tarran]

Gilbert,

I was an officer on the Abraham Lincoln. We didn't have the printing facility to make such a banner. Period.

A banner like that was made off ship.

Moreover, few CO's would waste the MWR budget on manufacturing a banner of ship and having it shipped in on the COD.

No CO would have fucked around with hanging things on the front of the island for his own entertainment: it messes up visibility and is a royal pain in the ass to arrange.

Some idiot in the White House wanted that banner. Some idiot had it flown in. Some idiot made sure that it was strung up underneath the forward facing windows of the bridge.

Blaming the ship's CO is just the kind of cowardly refusal to take responsibility for their own mistakes that characterized the Bush administration.

[&]

I rather enjoy watching while everything Obama touches blows up in his face. Too bad he's fucking the nation in the process. It's a very dark comedy.

[Jeffersonian]

Racist!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dello]

It would be hee-larious if GM threw an IPO and nobody came.

I wonder if the government would buy all the shares, because it represents such a great investment?

[H.F. Wolff]

Please, PLEASE, people! Obama's professional experience in business is strictly as a shake-down artist with no payroll or bottom line experience nor responsibility.

So don't blame him for the current fiasco and lack of concrete action.

Cast your eyes a little further afield and appraise those who advise him and those on whose judgment the president must rely.

What is the loyalty and agenda of these advisors???????

And these worthies have the best interest of the USA tax payer and citizen at heart?

It is to laugh.

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

Wolff, just because commenters on Hit and Run believe the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews and succeeded in killing about six million of them it doesn't mean they like Obama.

Save the lectures for telling how the Joooos are out to get us. Then it might be appropriate for you to take that hectoring tone as though we need some kind of correction.

[H.F. Wolff]

Hey Abe, weak in the arithmetic department aren't you?

It hasn't been 6 million since 1990 or so unless in your arithmetically challenged mind the official 3 million is "near 6 million" as you so quaintly put it.

The fucking economic house is falling down around your ears caused by bankers, their hangers-on plus paid stooges, practically all from the Chosen Tribe or in service thereof, and you tell me to "save it".

Brilliant, just fucking brilliant!

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

So, Hitler didn't try to exterminate the Jews, you just wish he had.

But it's good to know that it's still teh Jooooooooozzzz that are causing all the trouble.

And, I kind of need a source for that whole "they only managed to murder 3 million, so it wasn't a bad thing at all number you got." All the sources I trust still say around six. So let us know what work of fiction you're quoting from now.

Gee, since you hate Obama amd love Hitler so much, it must really be upsetting when American conservatives compare Obama to Hitler.

You just wish we had a man like Hitler in charge, don't you. Then we'd have no problems at all.

Thanks for the comic relief, man. Things suck kinda bad. But having an asshole like you to make fun of is priceless.

Seriously, I still wonder why a Jew-hater like you isn't bragging about your guy's body count. I mean, if all those people needed killing so badly why are you denying it. Be loud, be proud.

[H.F. Wolff]

Abe said: "All the sources I trust...".

Riiiight, such as Hollywood, comic books, college history books etc. Why don't you read Ferguson, Buchanan, IHR, etc. to get a broader perspective on things you know nothing about but pontificate on so vociferously?

If you were to use the data published by the governments of Israel, Poland, and Germany, one can make an excellent case that no-one was killed in Auschwitz; but your tiny mind couldn't grasp the logical details.

But to make it very simple for you: The plaque at Auschwitz was changed from "4 million murdered" to "1 million". According to Hoyle that changes 6 million to three million ie. 6 - 3 = 3 in case you have forgotten this elementary arithmetic.

The 3 million is highly questionable also because the Israeli government is on record stating that over 1 million holohoax survivors were still alive in 2000 or thereabouts. And Germany stated in 2005 that it was still paying "reparations" to about 1.5 million "survivors".

The American Journal of Public Health published mortality rates for various European countries post war.

Combining these facts one comes to the mathematical result that no-one was murdered in the concentration camps.

BTW this is the same mathematics that allows life insurance companies to get rich ie. it is very accurate.

But you in your "wisdom" can't let little mathematical facts obscure your vision, right?

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

Yep, let's make it all about the data.

All those eyewitnesses, including perpetrators, just lied.

But see, I knew I could get you to use that hectoring tone to lecture us about our ignorance.

But it's good to know it's not Obama's fault. He can't help it, the Jews are making him do it.

Why didn't you just say so in the first place.

[H.F. Wolff]

Abe, the enablers are the stupid voters that bought Obama's patter hook, line, and sinker. A little digging prior to voting would have disclosed his "business" experience as a shake-down artist aka community organizer, with nary a thought about payroll or bottom line.

Who was the comic strip hero who quoted: "I have seen the enemy and he is us"?

Ok, the voters blundered, but they do not have to continue with this blunder by listening to or complying with Obama's advisers and their unAmerican agenda.

As for the data I quoted earlier it is available all over the 'net, including the data from the American Journal of Public Health.

Abe, if you knew anything about jurisprudence you would know that in a REAL court eye-witness testimony is of the lowest order of credibility without corroborating forensic, scientific, or documentary evidence.

The important term is "evidence". A pile of paper is not evidence unless examined by a court of law, and this has never been done.

Even US Supreme Court Justices termed the Nuernberg trials a sham, a kangaroo act.

And with torture and threats to wife and children one can extort any answer one wishes.

As an example research "London Cage" a little.

[P Brooks]

This stock is like a coiled spring.

The sky's the limit, I tell you!

BUY BUY BUY!!!1

[Nephilium]

This stock isn't dead... it's merely pining for the Fords...

[Hugh Akston]

Of course, there is victory and there is victory.

While major bailout operations in GM are officially ending at the end of the month, the US will continue to maintain a deployment of 50,000 regulators in Detroit, in a purely advisory capacity.

[Holy Cow]

No, sorry, but the USS Lincoln was being retired from the Iraq War that day, so for them it was M.A.

But don't ask me. Ask Tommy Franks. Nah, don't. It'll spoil your narrative.

It was only a PR disaster because the Left/the MSM/real Libertarians made it so.

You know, just like when Bush couldn't tell the difference between a fake turkey and a real one. Or when he said that Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mandela.

Only in Real Libertarian land does a President overly cheering on troops count as a PR disaster.

Heavy combat operations were over. That was the M.A.

Sorta like when Real Libertarians cross Autoerotic Asphyxiation from their daily to-do list. I mean, not all the day's activities are over, especially when a fivesome between Julian Assange, Justin Raimondo, Scott Ritter and a very young boy to be named later is in the offing.

[SugarFree]

B-

You got a half-letter grade bump because we haven't had an unreconstructed conservatroll in a while.

[Holy Cow]

SF:

I'm not a troll. I've posted here before. I was trying to be sarcastic. I supported Bush on the wars, but not much domestically, in fact none at all.

But this line of attacking Bush for a sign on an aircraft carrier. Honestly, I don't get it. From any point of view.

There were 2 M.A.'s that day: 1) the USS Lincoln was going home for good; and 2) large scale combat operations were over. And the fuss?

And if you read Bush's speech, he stresses that the war is far from over, it's just a beginning.

From a military POV, again. What? I don't get it. So a Pres and the military got together to tell each other how super awesome they both are and put up Rah Rah Rah banner. And? That's it?

Maybe the same PC idiots (not those stupid Jesus freaks like Sarah Palin) who airbrush FDR from smoking can airbrush onto the 2003 speech: "Iraq-some objectives met; others still remain; possible cloudy weather. Oh, and Free Mumia!"

[johnl]

The IPO must be pushed out till after November so the voters can't see that Wall Street has been burned enough by GM and isn't coming back for another.

[John C. Randolph]

If there are any exchange-traded options on the zombie GM, I want to buy all the puts I can afford.

-jcr

[Glenn Ammons]

I predict a scandal when it comes out that the administration pressured and bribed pension funds and other big investors to buy stock in the IPO.