Survivor: Detroit (December, 20 NY Times Editorial)

“It came as a relief that President Bush was willing to break free of ideology long enough to keep General Motors and Chrysler from collapsing into a pile of rubble on his watch.” (Apparently important things only happen under the president's watch, never congress'.)

The New York Times does not elaborate on exactly what ideology the president broke free of. Perhaps it was that pesky constitutional ideology that restricts spending decisons to congress.

The House went through the exercise of passing a spending bill to bail out the auto industry. The Senate went through a similar effort and voted against its bill. For those of us into the whole constitutional ideology thing (e.g., the New York Times, when it comes to, say, warrantless wiretaps) this would seem to suggest that Detroit would not get taxpayer money, since both houses of congress did not sign off on a final spending bill.

But apparently this is different. “The $17.4 billion in loans that the administration has offered [General Motors and Chrysler]—which the Senate did not have the good sense to do—represent a necessary bridge over the road to liquidation, protecting the economy from a potential wave of additional job losses.”

Get it? It’s okay for the president to act in defiance of the will of congress when the Senate does not have “the good sense” to do what is necessary. If congress makes a decision to do or not do something, it is not congress that is actually responsible; it is the president. After all, we can't have things ending up in a pile of rubble just because the president doesn't have the nerve to act in defiance of congress. Can we?