Creative Revisionism

This afternoon, I read the op ed piece by Steve Rattner on Politico in which Rattner accuses Ron suskind of revisionism in his new book about the disarray in the early days of the Obama White House. To say the least, I got a good laugh. Rattner tries to dramatize the auto bailout (in which he was heavily involved) as some sort of coherent, thoughtful policy plan by the president. Here is a good example. Rattner says "When we proposed structured bankruptcies for Chrysler and General Motors – an unprecedented excursion into dangerous and uncharted waters – the president didn’t flinch. Even though the adventure could have well resulted in a meltdown of the entire auto sector — and the industrial Midwest." What a laugh! The point of the auto bailout was supposed to be to prevent the auto industry from going into bankruptcy. GM and Chrysler could have gone through bankruptcy without tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. The difference, of course, is that such a bankruptcy would not have seen the federal government in place to protect its favored interests. In a regular bankruptcy, the secured bondholders who had the strongest legal position would have received most of the equity in the new entities. Instead, in Chrysler, Obama forced the bondholders to give up most of their rights in favor of his friends at the UAW. But to Rattner, the move towards favoring the president's friends was bold and thoughtful. No, it was crony capitalism at its worst.

I see no reason to discuss Rattner's piece further. In fact, all you need to know is that Rattner renames the president "No drama Obama." Only a total fool or syncophant could write that.