“The Senate Republicans have made it clear they have no principled objection to bailouts. As The Freeman editor Sheldon Richman pointed out, if they’d been motivated by free market principle, they would have just refused a bailout — period. But instead, they demanded a rewrite of the House version because it wasn’t tough enough on auto workers. … Richman cited a Wall Street Journal editorial of the same day that celebrated the extortion as ‘Mitch McConnell’s Finest Hour.’ Shocked? I didn’t think so. What’s really amusing is the WSJ editors’ obliviousness to their own self-contradiction. Using the bailout as leverage to extort lower wages, in WSJ parlance, is ‘reform’ and ‘discipline.’ See, it was all about making auto workers ’show they were serious about making Detroit competitive again.’ … On the other hand, imposing discipline on anybody besides auto workers is blackmail.” (01/12/09)