The Choate-Weinberg Report

Muslim Propaganda Machine In Gear

I grew up in the 50s and 60s when we knew one thing for certain.

We knew that the nation of Israel was carved out of the desert by some very tough people who believed that it was the only place for a Jewish homeland and got the United Nations to agree with them in 1947.

We knew that virtually the entire surrounding states—dominated by Muslims—wanted to push the Jews who built Israel into the sea and annihilate them.

We watched in 1967 when, attacked on the most holy day of the year from three sides, those tough Jews kicked some serious Arab butt and, in seven days, captured the land, which is now called "Gaza" and the West Bank of Jerusalem.

We knew all these things, just as surely as we knew that the mob controlled Las Vegas, that Communism was bad, that we dropped the atomic bomb to end World War Two and save millions of lives and that we were the good guys in the world.

Sometime after the Yom Kippur War in 1967, Muslims became a bit more public relations savvy.

They got to the media and began the rewriting of history.

They found willing friends in the anti-war types in places like Berkley, the SDS Weather Underground and the Black P Stone Rangers in Chicago.

All of a sudden, we weren’t the good guys anymore.

And maybe that Karl Marx guy had it right.

And we were the fascists for having unleashed the power of the atom on those poor, innocent Japanese who really didn’t do anything to upset us.

And the Israelis?

A bunch of war mongering Jews who deserved all that suicide bombing.

Well, folks, I’m here to tell you that organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations are nothing more than a modern, updated version of Adolph Hitler’s propaganda ministry, specializing in the Big Lie.

For the record, the mob DID control Vegas. We ARE the good guys. And Communism IS bad. And we were perfectly within our rights to use the Atomic Bomb to end World War Two.

And the state of Israel has every right to be where it is and defend its existence.

Ask yourself this.

If Canada were to fire scud missiles into Minnesota, Michigan, Montana and upstate New York, what do you think our response might be?

If Mexico were to fire scuds into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, do you think we would ask anyone’s permission before we sent a few F22s down to Mexico City for a few surgical strikes of our own?

And, our domestic politics aside, had George W. Bush NOT gone into Afghanistan and Iraq, do you think he would have survived the impeachment trial, which surely would have happened?

Well, things are no different in Israel.

You don’t really think those sophisticated rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel are being manufactured there, do you?

How long do you expect them to put up with this crap?

Because the bottom line is that what we knew in 1967 is still true today.

Only now, the Muslims have better propaganda.

FRED WEINBERG

Who Could Have Known?

H.L. Mencken famously observed, "Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced."

So it is with the contemporary commentators on the present economic crisis. Most are employed to be cheerleaders for either a major political party or some economic special interest. As for the media, I cannot remember any commentator on NBC or its cable networks ever make a criticism of General Electric, the owner. The same is true of those whose work for the News Corporation and Fox. CBS is effectively out of the news industry and thus does not matter.

The less facile of these opinion leaders say the crisis is the fault of the Bush Administration because of its lax oversight over the lending practices in the house industry and the financial thievery of Wall Street. A few critics extend the blame back into the Clinton Administration and its pressures on the public housing agencies to weaken standards.

The crisis, of course, is about more than massive incompetence and theft in the housing and mortgage industries. It includes fiscal policies that increased the federal debt from $1 trillion in 1981 to more than $10 trillion by the end of 2008. It is about trade policies that have produced deficits that now exceed $700 billion annually and are well along the way in gutting our industrial base. It is about ignoring food, safety, environmental and product standards, even as the nation opened its borders to an import flood of dubious and unsafe goods. It is about not enforcing immigration or employment laws, which allowed some 15 million people to enter the U.S. illegally, many of which are now working in an underground work force of cheap labor and no benefits, all to the detriment of unemployed Americans.

The underlying mantra is, "How could anyone have known?" Surely, the line goes, no one could have anticipated that cutting the FDA budget would have led to an import surge of dangerous goods and foods? Who could have suspected that Wall Street and banks would take gambled like fools with their depositors’ money? How could anyone have guessed that a prominent Wall Street investor would operate a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, especially after the SEC refused to investigate complaints? Who knew that foreign governments and industries operate predatory global cartels?

If the "we couldn’t have known" excuse is acceptable, those who made the mistakes can safely carry on with their careers. After all, "how could anyone have known?" They are also victims.

Of course, everyone did know. Millions of Americans had the courage and independence to go against those who set out to loot the nation. The Internet allows us to instantly recall the arguments made and the positions and votes taken by everyone involved.

Remember the vote on NAFTA? That pact was the forerunner for all the other unfettered trade arrangements that followed, including U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization. During the 1993 debate on that issue, the American people were deeply involved. Tens of thousands actually came to Washington to meet with their Representatives and Senators; debates filled talk radio and poll after poll revealed that a majority of citizens opposed the deal. Bill Clinton and his advisors, many of which now lead the Obama Administration, and Congressional leaders including Newt Gingrich, pushed the bill down the public’s throat in 1993. The next year they held a lame-duck session and ratified the WTO. The individual votes are in the Congressional Record.

In one of Bill Clinton’s last acts as President, he pushed legislation through Congress that allowed China to enter the WTO and be treated as through it were a market economy, which it is not. During that vote, 197 Members of the House of Representatives voted against the pact, as did 15 Senators. The vote was contentious, the arguments were made in depth, and the advocates knew exactly what they were doing. Subsequently, the trade deficit with China, which then was $90 billion annually, has tripled. More than 3 million good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost over the next 8 years – most went to China. Everyone who would look could see.

One of the most significant bad decisions was the Congressional repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in November 1999. That New Deal legislation controlled financial speculation by prohibiting a bank holding company from owning other financial companies. Led by Senator Phil Graham (R-TX) the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote of 54-41, with one Democrat, repealed that safety net. The House voted 343-86 to do the same. With that, Wall Street and the banking system were allowed to self-regulate themselves and the result is the present financial crisis. When Graham’s term ended, he went to work as a lobbyist for a large Swiss bank.

With the "How could anyone have known?" defense as a shield, Larry Summers, the Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration who supported that repeal, is now President-elect Obama’s chief economic advisor. Robert Rubin, the co-head of CITI, which is costing taxpayers almost $300 billion to bailout, is one of the few people that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has brought before the House Democratic Caucus to provide economic advice. New York Fed President Timothy Geitner, who failed to oversee Wall Street and the big money city banks, will be the next Secretary of the Treasury.

Since so many of these bad decisions required a public vote, a useful exercise would be to identify every trade bill enacted from NAFTA forward, every deregulation bill such as the repeal of Glass Stegall, every bailout vote and do a chart on just how each of our Senators and Representatives voted.

The surprise will be that a significant number of our Representatives consistently acted to stop these destructive acts. They are stewards and truth tellers and merit our respect.

More interesting, such an accounting would identify a long list of public official whose jobs depend on not being convinced. They merit a forced return to private life.

PAT CHOATE

Political Office Does Not Require Rocket Scientist

You can tell that the economy has everybody in a surly mood when New York Democrats are busy attacking Caroline Kennedy’s credentials to become the next junior Senator from the state.

Caroline Kennedy not qualified to become a Senator?

Give me a break/

Now, I have very little in common with Ms. Kennedy’s politics, but to say that this accomplished lawyer and author isn’t qualified to serve in Harry Reid’s Senate is like saying that John McCain wasn’t qualified to be President. It’s just not true.

First off, the major qualification to be a Senator is a strong stomach. Look at Exhibit A, Harry Reid.

In fact, the reasons most people would decline a seat in the Senate is that a Senator has to spend each day of his or her six year term raising enough money to get re-elected. And those numbers are starting to get well into the eight figures, even in small states like Nevada.

Somehow, I don’t think the founding fathers thought that ability would become a qualification, but it has.

Other than the ability to get re-elected, my guess is that many Americans, perhaps 100,000,000 of us could easily serve in the Senate.

It’s not rocket science.

And if you think that also doesn’t apply to the House, go watch Charlie Wilson’s War which has the added benefit of being mostly true.

Somehow, the punditocracy seems to have decided that there are actually qualifications for political office beyond those enumerated in the Constitution.

Let’s put this into perspective.

The people who brought you the auto company bail-out debate, who would presume to tell the folks who actually run the auto companies that they don’t know what they are doing have pissed our money away faster than GM and Chrysler could have ever dreamed.

They need qualifications for that?

The truth is that we rarely—if ever—get truly qualified people to run for political office because they don’t want to put up with the crap that goes along with running.

You get a pubic colonoscopy and it’s not even on pay-per-view. It’s where they probably got the idea for American Idol.

Real people usually don’t want to see their rectum on camera in a public setting.

So, sometimes we get well-intentioned people, sometimes we get good people dedicated to public service but many times we get the Rod Blagojovich’s of the world who see being a governor as being a stepping stone to the big time.

So, when Caroline Kennedy—for whatever the reason—throws her hat into the ring, to hear anyone say that she has no qualifications to serve strikes me as ludicrous.

To be a brain surgeon, you need qualifications.

To be a rocket scientist, you need qualifications.

To be a closer for the Anaheim Angels, you need the same qualifications as Troy Percival and Francisco Rodriguez.

To be the round mound of rebound, you need the same qualifications as Charles Barkley.

But any rocket scientist, brain surgeon, and yes, K-Rod, Percy or Sir Charles could probably do a pretty fair job as a United States Senator. All they need to do is get elected or appointed.

So, don’t tell me that if Harry Reid can be a Senator, Caroline Kennedy cannot.

FRED WEINBERG

Review: NOCA In Phoenix

By FRED WEINBERG

Editor and Publisher

PHOENIX, Az—We don’t run a lot of restaurant reviews here because we’re pretty well aware that most people know what they’re going to get at places like Burger King where most of our readers (and this writer) eat when we’re in a hurry.

That said, I had a business meeting with my partner in our broadcasting company last week and he took me to dinner at a place he had invested in last summer.

All I can tell you about the conflict of interest is that if I didn’t think the place was great, you wouldn’t even be reading this.

But if you have business or pleasure in Phoenix, make a point of eating at NOCA, 3118 E Camelback Rd.

You might think that with a four letter name and a shopping center location, NOCA is some sort of a fancy cult restaurant and you would be about half right. It is rapidly developing a cult following but is anything but fancy. NOCA stands for North Of Camelback, and is located in a traditional strip center anchored by a Safeway store.

But it was driven by restaurateur Eliot Wexler and the Chicago native knows his food.

Friday night, the space was packed with a wide variety of Phoenix diners in the middle of a recession and they were there for the food.

In a word, it’s very, very good.

I had what was perhaps the best filet I ever tasted—and my work as a journalist has had me eat is many places around the world.

Turns out the meat came from a purveyor located in Calumet City, Illinois and this particular item wasn’t even on the menu but is available on order.

NOCA has an array of salads, all of which are not only presented well but taste as good as they look.

I didn’t see a frown on anybody’s face for the entire two hours I was there and when something doesn’t go right at a restaurant, believe me, you can see it in an environment like that.

The service was attentive but not obnoxious and it’s obvious that Wexler has put together a team which enjoys the work. That sort of thing shows.

My only criticism is that his deserts offered nothing for the one third of us who are diabetic and cannot eat sugar, but I’m not sure that anything which is sugar-free is available to meet his standards.

Price-wise NOCA is slightly more expensive than, say, the Capitol Grill but the value is clearly in the food and the experience.

If you’re in Phoenix, make reservations at (602) 956-6622.

There are plenty of nice places to eat in Phoenix, but you should not miss this one.

Keeping Obama’s Promise

Presidential candidate Barack Obama promised Ohio voters last February that if elected he would renegotiate NAFTA and make it fair for American workers. With that, he cut Hillary Clinton’s lead in the Ohio Democratic primary, put himself on the path to political victory and ultimately the Presidency.

Yet, the people who President-elect Obama is appointing suggest that he intends to follow the failed "free trade" policies of his two predecessors.

Indeed, Obama’s key economic advisors are all hard-core "free traders," as devoted to the theories of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Milton Friedman as the Bush appointees they will be replacing.

For example, Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration, a key advocate for NAFTA and an architect of U.S. policies for global financial deregulation, will head the Obama National Economic Council.

The Secretary of the Treasury will be Timothy F. Geithner, Summers’ aide in the 1990s and now the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – the man who failed to monitor Wall Street during the Bush years. A former employee of Kissinger and Associates, Geithner, too, is a devoted free trader.

The Administration’s point person on trade will be Ron Kirk, who is glaringly unqualified for the job. In the late 1990s, Kirk was the Mayor of Dallas, Texas, and in 2002, a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat now held by his GOP opponent.

Kirk has no experience in negotiating major trade deals or enforcing them. As Mayor, he supported NAFTA and as candidate for the U.S. Senate he supported having the U.S. make more free trade pacts.

After failing to win the 2002 Texas Senate race, Kirk joined the giant Houston law firm of Vinson Elkins, where he lobbied the Texas Legislature for the Wall Street private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and TPG, a global investment firm.

TPG has more than $50 billion of capital under management around the world. KKR controls 51 private equity portfolio companies and has a total value of more than $68 billion. KKR has done the largest buyouts in the history of the U.S., the Netherlands, Denmark, India, Australia, Turkey, Singapore, and France. Besides its U.S. offices, Vinson Elkins has offices in Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, Shanghai and Tokyo.

The principal criticism of the Clinton and Bush trade policies is that they were not about trade, but about making the world safe for U.S. investments. It was investment policy. Those policies, reduced to binding international treaties, facilitated and speeded the outsourcing of U.S. factories, jobs, and service work, even as they made the import of those foreign-made goods and services quota and tariff-free in the U.S.

U.S. Trade Representative designate Kirk has the perfect background and connections to continue those corporate-pleasing investment policies for the Obama Administration. His will be a familiar career path – continue to serve corporate interests while in charge of U.S. trade matters and then become a highly paid international "consultant" after leaving Office.

The Obama Administration can do better than this. The U.S. Senate should help the new President by refusing to ratify this nominee.

PAT CHOATE

AAA Should Rethink National Nanny Role

I know that there are plenty of more important things for me to write about.

And I know that when some people see the subject of this week’s editorial, they might wonder if my priorities are a bit skewed.

But the truth is that we all know the economy sucks and we all know that we’re in the middle of a presidential transition and we all know that there are a lot of empty houses for sale.

What’s bothering me this week is that a group of which I’ve been almost a lifetime member since my father gave me a membership when I got my driver’s license, the American Automobile Association, has decided to take my money and use it to become a national nanny.

They just released a study saying that even if you use a headset or a speakerphone, talking on a cellphone while you are driving is dangerous.

Now, when New York first passed a law making it illegal to talk on a phone and drive—absent a headset—I thought it was a bit of an intrusion in our lives. In fact, I was outraged.

Years of watching idiots do just that during my morning commute on the 95 changed my mind.

I first bought a wired headset and then the latest Bluetooth so I would not fall into that category.

They work real well.

I can keep both eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel while I run up my 6,000 minutes a month, trying my best to make sure my company is not a victim of the current recession.

The mere fact that it only costs $99 a month to be in that close communication with our various locations helps kill the lack of communications which used to cause major problems in a small business. (I also get to talk with my parents every day, which is more and more precious as we all get older.)

The thrust of the study is that talking on a cellphone is a greater distraction than tuning a radio or having a conversation in a car.

The study also concluded that people over 50 were more affected than people under 50.

And, finally, the study concluded that the various hands-free devices available didn’t solve the problem.

Here’s what they didn’t study: the skill level of the drivers they were testing.

When I got my driver’s license at age 16, I knew everything there was to know about a car except that I didn’t have much experience driving it. My reflexes were great but I had no judgment, which was developed from millions of miles of driving.

I suspect at age 56, my reflexes are not what they were when I was 16. But I now have the knowledge which comes along with those millions of miles and hundreds of thousands of hours of seat time.

For many people, a phone in their car is a relatively new phenomenon. I, on the other hand, have had phones in my cars since the mid 1970s.

AAA seems intent on using that study to pass laws which would have the effect of turning many of us into criminals.

Perhaps, they need to rethink that. As much as I appreciate my AAA card, I have one or two others in my wallet which come from organizations which are worried about getting me a tow truck when I need it.

While I agree that cellphones are abused to the detriment of my safety every day in Las Vegas, perhaps the answer is to study what might be done to teach people how to use them as safely as, say, tuning a car’s radio.

Because criminalizing cellphone use is going to be tougher than winning the war on drugs. In a word, impossible.

Especially if we have no intention of mandating driver’s education before we grant a driver’s license.

FRED WEINBERG

Bailout Oversight. Not!

Wall Street is getting away with a second round of looting. This time they’re stealing the taxpayer monies put up in the Bush Bailout. How much is being taken? We don’t know and that is the point of this commentary.

Two weeks ago the General Accountability Report, the non-partisan audit agency of the federal government, documented the failure of the Treasury Department to impose safeguards and oversight of the $300 billion it was providing to bailout Wall Street.

Treasury, for instance, does not know how each recipient bank is using the federal money or whether it is being used in ways that are consistent with the law.

Yesterday, we did learn that the Treasury had made a mistake in writing the contracts on the question of executive compensation. Banks will be able to use some of the federal monies to pay large bonuses to the very people that lost billions of their stockholders, gambling on risky investment and loans. We also learned that the banks intend to use about half of the bailout monies to pay stock dividends over the next three years.

Who should we voters blame for this theft of our monies?

The banks are cheats and everyone should now understand that the leaders of many of the largest banks would steal the wallpaper off their office walls if they could make a few dollars. Moral banker is a contradictory term.

Ultimately, the blame falls on Congress for there is where the buck stops on oversight. Presidents come and go. But the Congress is a living body that continues from year to year with most Members remaining in place. They form the institutional memory of our government and are our direct representatives.

When the Executive Branch fails to do its duty, as is happening with the U.S. Treasury on the bailout, Congress has a duty to step in quickly.

The idea that a bad contract would allow the banks to rip us off again and the Treasury stands idle with its officials wringing their hands is ridiculous. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi should bring the CEOs of these banks before Congressional investigative committees and grill them hard about their greed and why they are using public monies to pay themselves unwarranted bonuses and their stockholders unearned dividends.

If sunshine does not work, then Senator Reid and Majority Leader Pelosi have other means they can use. One is to have a private discussion with these CEO-thieves and let them know that the Senate expects them to use the federal monies to make loans that create jobs, to reduce their pay to moderate levels, and to cut dividends until the banks are again profitable or else.

Else can be the loss of tax breaks. Or, it can be real audits. Or, it could be the appointment of a permanent investigative committee with people such as Henry Waxman as Chairman. I can think of even more offensive "Or Else" alternatives. So can these Congressional leaders.

The point is Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi are our list lines of defense against this thievery. They need to act, and act now before there is a third, fourth and fifth rip-off.

PAT CHOATE

Reid: You Can Smell The Tourists

Harry, Harry, Harry. . .

We all know that you are a mean, arrogant little blowhard, but we really didn’t figure you to be stupid enough to embarrass the entire state which sent you to Washington in the first place.

"My staff tells me not to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks at the dedication, last week of the $621-million congressional visitor’s center. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it’s true."

On the other hand, you are the same person who called President Bush a "loser" in front of a class of fourth graders and said that we have "lost the war" in Iraq when we have troops in harm’s way.

You just can’t restrain yourself, can you?

Someone gets in your way, roll over them. Frankly, we’re not big fans of Brian Krolicki who we also regard as an empty suit, but just like we had a hard time believing four or more members of the 1999 Clark County Commission were not on the take, we have a really hard time believing that you had NOTHING to do with his indictment—especially in view of the fact that Krolicki got advice from the same attorney general’s office which indicted him.

Harry.

This is a state which depends on those same tourists you so blithely verbally crapped on last week.

Are you really that arrogant or do you just think that the tourists we’re working so hard to attract to your home state won’t make the connection?

In case you haven’t figured this out, bullying and arrogance will only take you so far.

There’s an old Yiddish proverb which roughly translated says that "friends come and go, but enemies accumulate".

Judging from your elections in recent years, you have a fair number of enemies.

In case you do not read the state’s largest newspaper, their Democratic Publisher has been skewering you for more than a year.

You are doing everything you can to shut down rural Nevada economically because much of it has the temerity to vote Republican.

You—unlike our President elect—appear to place vengeance over progress.

This is a state of very good people who usually do the right thing.

In 2010, we’re going to have the opportunity to pass judgment on the body of your work.

There will be no lack of well funded opponents.

Would it be remotely possible for you to dial back your rhetoric and arrogance and bullying attitude so that President Obama can actually get things done without you polarizing the nation in the process?

Or do we have to start the 2010 campaign today?

FRED WEINBERG

He Could Smell The Meat Acookin

By FRED WEINBERG

Editor and Publisher

I grew up watching Chicago politics from 150 miles down state.

William G. Stratton was the first Illinois Governor I remember as a kid. He was indicted for tax evasion but he beat the rap.

Then there was Otto Kerner.

He was convicted.

After Kerner, there was Dan Walker—a reform Governor who was charged and convicted after he left office.

Moving right along, there was George Ryan who is still serving time in prison and now his successor, Rod Blagojevich has just been arrested for trying to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.

Since I now live in Chicago’s western-most suburb, Las Vegas, I still follow the politics of Illinois and it would appear that nothing has changed.

People here in Las Vegas seem to think that we know a thing or two about public corruption.

Despite the exploits of our 1999 County Commission and Harry Reid’s real estate deals, we’re amateurs.

The Chicago way is that election to a public office is an entitlement.

You get to use the office as an excuse to suckle at the public teat.

And, in case you think that I’m attacking liberal Democrats here, official corruption in Illinois is a bi-partisan sport.

Ryan and Stratton were Republicans.

Ryan has actually applied to President Bush for a commutation of his six year sentence to the year he has served. I’m betting on fat chance.

In Blagojevich’s case he has been under investigation for one thing or another since 2004.

Which only goes to show you how arrogant Illinois politicians are.

When I was a freshman at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, a Secretary of State named Paul Powell died while he was in office.

He was 68 years old and had been Secretary of State for five years.

Now, in Illinois, that job is powerful because it carries with it (or did at that time) the right to appoint about 5,000 jobs.

Powell actually was fond of saying what Blagojevich never said in public.

"There’s only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that’s a broke one."

He also had another saying when he came to the subject of state jobs:

"I can smell the meat acookin".

A boyhood friend of his told Time Magazine at the time, "Paul was just a big old country boy—he could shake you down and make you like him."

He had been investigated, like Blagojevich, but he managed to convince a grand jury he had done nothing wrong when he bought stock in a harness track operation which he had pushed in the state legislature. After the grand jury returned a no bill, he told the media, "It wound up with the grand jurors wanting to know from me where they could buy racetrack stock."

When he died, they found that a guy who had never made more than about $30,000 a year had over $800,000 in cash stuffed into shoeboxes in a hotel room in Springfield, Illinois.

I tell this story because it says a lot about Illinois politics.

There is a new law going into effect in Illinois, which would prohibit campaign contributions from individuals, and companies, which do business with the state.

Blagojevich was frantically, trying to beat that deadline in case he wanted to run for a third term or something else.

Paul Powell died before he got caught.

One has to wonder what Blagojevich has in a shoebox somewhere.

Because he isn’t doing anything which hasn’t been done many, many times before by politicians of both parties in Illinois.

The big question, in that this is Chicago’s western-most suburb, is how much of that tradition has come to rest here?

The Auto Czar

I do not know whether to laugh or cry over the idea that the Federal rescue legislation for the U.S. auto industry will create a new government position unofficially titled, "The Auto Czar." This person will be responsible for reviewing and approving expenditures of $25 million or more in this rescue.

Remember the "Energy Czar," the "Drug Czar", and the "Intellectual Property Czar." In each instance, little useful was accomplished.

But those positions were largely one of exhortation. The Auto Czar is different in that it would require someone to pore over hundreds of requests for expenditures and approve or disapprove each item. No one found anywhere in the world has the expertise to make those decisions soundly.

Inevitably, the Auto Czar will be called before Congressional Committees to explain those decisions. Can you imagine a Congressional Committee questioning whether the money was spent on making the right design, building the right size engine, using four or two-wheel drives and the proper production ratio of passenger vehicles to SUVs and pick-ups.

What if low-interest financing rates and rebates are required? I guess they, too, will require federal approval.

Will someone reporting to Congress be permitted to approve the purchase of auto parts from Mexico and Canada?

The Big Three are profitable in Europe. Will the Auto Czar also be in charge of that production?

In reality, the Auto Czar will become a massive bottleneck in the recovery process. It is a truly bad idea that needs to be squashed now.

But in the remote chance that it makes sense or that Congress decides to keep it in the legislation, then I suggest that Congress also create a "Wall Street Bailout Czar." This person’s job would be to oversee the $700 billion being loaned to Wall Street. And while we are at it, let’s require that this person approve every loan of $25 million or more.

Let’s also impose the same standard on paying dividends to Wall Street bailout recipients that we are to the auto industry – that is, none. Over the next three years, Wall Street firms have announced that they intend to distribute to their stockholders more than 50 percent of the loan funds in the form of dividends.

Inevitably, the "Wall Street Czar" would be expected to take a sharp look at how the money is being spent. If Wall Street is financing a major project in some other nation, such as power plant, would the Czar have to approve the deal?

Maybe the idea of government supervision of an industry will prove so destructive and burdensome that the auto experience will serve as a warning to others, and an incentive for them to stay out of the federal clutches.

As for now, this taxpayer wants some supervision of these bailouts and information made public, but not micro-management. So far, I have seen no one in either the Bush or Obama Administrations that are qualified to fill this job.

PAT CHOATE