In today's column, "Obama could boast over auto bailout" Free Press writer Tom Walsh lists in detail just how amazing President Obama's handling of the U.S. auto manufacturers' crisis has been.  Admittedly, the Free Press is a liberal paper from a Democratic city, but it is unquestionably the "paper of record" for the automobile industry, the leading media specialist in that domain, and ready to put its perceptions of the industry's health ahead of feelings for any political figure.  Team Obama stared down auto executives, Wall Street and the UAW to get a solution that sailed through bankruptcy courts at an amazing pace, spread the pain as fairly as possible, and was in the interests of the common good.  The initial take is, the automakers will actually be able to make money pay us all back after this mass erasure of management, engineering and labor collaboration in huge mistakes.  Read it here:

http://www.freep.com/article/20090712/COL06/907120567/Obama-could-boast-over-auto-bailout

It's up to Chrysler and GM now.  Obama gave them a chance when he could have been "presidential," watching from afar and avoiding all risk of error.  Had he done so, the failure of two of the big three would probably have taken the legs out from under Ford because Ford's suppliers would have lost a huge share of their business with the other domestic automakers, and then Ford would have collapsed, too.  And Obama would have had the GOP howling at his inaction and clamoring for their only solution: more tax breaks.   Of course, these are useless to companies losing money by the, er, truckload. 

This would have been more than enough for an experienced President to tackle as a solo crisis, but years of misguided conservative government left the U.S. and the world with a laundry list of catastrophes all operating at once.  With the completion of the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies, a second item can come off the list.  I say "second" because item #1 was avoiding a worldwide depression, which was staved off only by federal intervention.  I have yet to see a conservative who understands or even acknowledges this historic feat of keeping economic anarchy at bay.

To spot-check some of the other hot spots, the banking industry did not collapse and is paying back federal aid by the tens of billions of dollars.  Obama arm-twisted the developed world into dramatically increased aid to the developing world.  Iraqis celebrated U.S. troops' withdrawal from their cities.  A renewed military response is ongoing in the forgotten war in Afghanistan, and the danger in Western Pakistan is no longer being ignored.  As for the other two-thirds of the "Axis of Evil" North Korea has shown again that it is internationally annoying but ineffective and Iran's government was exposed as contemptuous teaming with seething civil unrest when a rigged election was badly timed to follow an Obama speech, not bombs or bullets, directed to the Muslim world . 

Not everything is working perfectly; some things are still not working at all, like reforming the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy.  Other things will only work at a snail's pace, like reduction of unemployment because that's just the way it is.  The jury is still out on health care and carbon emissions but the pace of action is generally astounding by Washington's standards.  With such a full agenda the main obstacle to immigration reform is fitting it into the Congressional schedule. 

On more ambiguous issues, Obama is showing himself to be the "grown up in the room."  This is clear on matters like torture of prisoners, the Russian, Cuban and Venezuelan relationships to the world and Africa's internal challenges.  And he has ruled out a second stimulus to stand behind his first bill, which I always maintained was more disaster avoidance than a full-blown recovery program, which is fine with me.

Barack Obama has accomplished more in the first half of his first term than George W. Bush did in eight years, and anything Bush "accomplished" is dwarfed by horrendous domestic and foreign policies that will handicap us for years, killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions of others and savaged the Constitution and the rule of law in ways still being discovered. 

The whining Republicans refuse to see that when trillions of dollars simply disappear due to conservative stupidity and free market worship, government has no choice but to step in to avoid economic anarchy.  Yes, we had to "mortgage the future" but the only other alternative Republicans left us was a worldwide depression -- no thank you!  Meanwhile, the Republicans are left without any countermoves other than their own inexplicable self-destruction, without which we wouldn't even know they were still here.

President Obama gives me reason to wake up proud of America, and every Republican reason to be "green," not environmentally but with envy!