This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
Next up for U.S. taxpayers: a plan to bail out General Motors.
The giant automaker is stumbling toward Chapter 11. Without help, it may run out of cash by the end of the year. Bankruptcy, its officers say, is not an option. They say customers won’t buy cars from a company that looks like it’s gone bust.
It’s not just GM. Ford and Chrysler are on the same path.
As with Fannie Mae, AIG and all the rest, the logic of federal intervention is that this one’s too big to let fail. Failure could indeed be catastrophic. Auto manufacturing is America’s biggest industry. If the Big Three went completely bust, more than 2 million Americans – many of them working for suppliers – could lose their jobs.
The failure of General Motors – a pillar of American industry – would say something awful about the United States.
One problem with loaning General Motors $25 billion, as congressional Democrats are pushing to do, is that it simply may not work. GM could slip into bankruptcy anyway.
Like Ford and Chrysler, GM has been a victim of its own leadership – union leaders emphatically included.
They’ve been operating under the Soviet model of manufacturing: let others set the trends, perpetuate the past, turn out obsolete vehicles for the sake of keeping assembly lines running.
Much of GM’s strategy has consisted of selling massive, low-mpg trucks and SUVs in a world of rising gasoline costs and growing concern over global warming. Its unions saddled it with extremely costly work rules and benefit expenses as leaner Japanese automakers cut relentlessly into its market share.
The loans would again shield GM from the consequences of its mismanagement. Yet the alternative is another massive crater in the U.S. economy.
Before approving any loans, questions must be answered:
Would Chapter 11 really ruin GM? America’s airlines have been in and out of bankruptcy, emerging with restructured debts and more realistic labor contracts.
How, exactly, would a bailout put the company on the road to healthy profits?
Would Congress resist the temptation to use public money as leverage to subject GM to political control? That was another brilliant feature of Soviet industry.
The bailout may be necessary. But as they say in the military, don’t reinforce failure.
Congress shouldn’t invest a penny saving the corporate culture that’s been playing catch-up with Japanese automakers since the 1970s.
