Why Does the Right Hate Detroit?

In his column about Detroit this morning, Bill Kristol predictably grinds his ax against "political and media elites," but he also has a keen critique of the GOP. "The right hasn't really been stirred to enthusiastically promote a deregulatory agenda to help the auto companies," he writes. "What excites it is mobilizing to oppose bailouts for unionized workers." Senate Republicans opposed the auto bailout because of pay scales, Kristol writes, "despite the fact that it's the legacy benefits for retirees, not pay for current workers, that's really hurting Detroit, and despite the additional fact that, in any case, labor amounts to only about 10 percent of the cost of a car." The result was the failure of an auto bailout that would have forced concessions from all sides.