MORE ON GM (GOVERNMENT MOTORS)

According to President Obama, Detroit can't focus on "trying to build more and more SUVs and counting on gas prices being low."

The administration is expected to announce plans to raise fuel efficiency standards to 30.2 mpg for the 2011 model year and pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, and minivans will need to reach 24.1 mpg.

Now from George Will, writing in the Washington Post:

Yet last week, in an unenthralled summary of GM's "viability" plan, Obama's administration said: "GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs.

And:

The stunning shift in consumer preferences that should make the White House's freshly minted auto experts feel vulnerable has been reported under headlines such as ‘Like a Rock: Hybrid Car Sales Plummet’ (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9) and ‘Hybrid Car Sales Go From 60 to 0 at Breakneck Speed’ (Los Angeles Times, March 17). Absent $4 gasoline, customers, those nuisances with their insufferable preferences, do not want the vehicles the politicians want them to want ....

So let me get this straight. (1) American auto manufacturers are nearly bankrupt. (2) The only automobiles they make that are profitable are light trucks and SUVs. (3) In order to get federal "bailout" money, they have to quit manufacturing them and only manufacture automobiles that American consumers don't want.

Huh?

Now back to Will:

Has the Car Designer in Chief, a.k.a. the president, considered the possibility that what he calls "the cars of tomorrow" will forever be that? ... His administration cannot be faulted for failing to do well what cannot be done well -- industrial policy, wherein the political class, with negligible experience in commerce, flounders. The administration can, however, be faulted for trying.

Yes.