REAL CHANGE

Obama, and the people who voted for him, were all about "change." Does that mean real change? "Sea-change? Or does it just mean a little careful tweaking so that you'd hardly notice?

The auto execs flew in to Washington. As several pundits put it, coming by private jet and carrying a tin cup. So far, there is no real sign of change. Yet the Democrats, let by house speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Senate chief Harry Reid, have told the Big Three to go back to the drawing board and come up with some specifics.

They won't. I am confident of that. It is their infernal refusal to recognize change going on around them. Yes, they ca blame the economic meltdown which would not have come at a worse time for them. They were unprepared for real change in the product they manufacture.

But they can do it. They must. Even the cipher in the White House, tottering to the end of his administration. knows that change is possible. Possible that is, if you see the depth of the emergency.

They did it before. When America entered the war they turned their industrial power into arms production. They became the world's arsenal. The huge Ford plant at Willow Run (taken over after the war by Henry Kaiser to build his cars) switched to turning out B24 Liberator bombers. Their production capacity was enormous.

The auto makers responded to the call to arms with change. Of course there were prodigious profits to be made, but that is almost beside the point.

The point is that when a national emergency was thrust upon them they responded.
The government did not seem to mind throwing billions of dollars in war contracts at them. But again - that is not the point.

America has shown that it can change.

It may not be 1941 with the shadow of Pearl Harbour hanging over their consciosness, but it is a shattering crisis nonetheless.

I do believe that American industry can rally. I do believe that there is a war to be won.

Can they do it?