Day One

Today Mickey tackles the auto industry bailout, which suits him far, far better than discussing the financial sector bailout.

In Mickey's world, there are only three plausible causes for anything bad in the world: 1) illegal immigrants; 2) unions (especially teachers' unions); and 3) soft-headed Warren Court liberals. Some other groups get dinged through bank shots -- Mickey's a fan of decrying the bling-bling welfare culture of dependancy and denouncing overzealous gay rights activists, but never levels charges at blacks or gays themselves. And naturally anyone in the all-powerful-yet-about-to-die MSM not willing to tell it like it is (i.e., blame nos. 1-3) will come in for a rough time, but the true villainy are apparent.

This made Mickey's analysis of the Bear/AIG/Lehman disasters quite difficult, as none of the parties was run by or for Mexicans, unionized workers, or anyone willing to listen to Mexicans or unionized workers. Mickey, being a professional, gamely tried to pin the collapse on minorities, but he abandoned the effort much quicker than some of his colleagues, probably because he couldn't pull any anecdotes out of his plodding daily life to use as data points in his punditry. If freeway commutes/restaurant visits/dinner parties in Southern California aren't going to magically educate Mickey about credit default swaps, then it seems that nothing will.

The auto bailout, on the other hand, is almost perfect for Mickey. Sure, the UAW is no AFT, but it is a union with the gall to act as a representative for workers in contract negotiations, and the indecency to drive the best bargain for its members. It's as good as it's going to get until Obama revives the corpse of William Brennan, and makes him the point man for comprehensive immigration reform.