Is there an Oprah in your future?

Finally, a solution to the auto crisis.

Executives who steered their car companies off the road should bail out, resigning to make room for success-oriented leadership.

That means putting Oprah Winfrey in charge.

Then Oprah can use the federal government’s proposed $25 billion handout to buy a million cars from the manufacturers and give them away. The companies will zing and Oprah will be free to apply her entrepreneurial talents, as Henry Ford did, to new ideas an long-term growth.

Fantasy? Yes, just like Congress.

Business chiefs out on bail

Nobody’s talking about bailing out newspapers. Some want to let bankers out on bail, courtesy of taxpayers. No matter how clumsy its leaders have been, Ford and General Motors and even Chrysler have a cheering section to set them free on bail. This stirs mixed memories in folks who bought unreliable American cars. I’m thinking of the Chevrolet Impala I bought in 1965. It broke down hours after I drove it off the dealer’s property, and was towed back there for the first in a series of repairs. A Plymouth station wagon, a couple of Buicks and an Oldsmobile continued the shoddy tradition.

Reliability appeared in the form of a Toyota station wagon I bought in Hawaii decades ago, followed by other Japanese vehicles and eventually the reliable American Saturn. The U.S. auto industry is big and politically powerful, but not loveable.

The communications industry, especially its ailing newspapers, has been dishing it out for so long that nobody gives a thought to bailing it out.

Given the number of respected business schools in the United States, and the number of MBA degrees granted by American universities, a person might wonder why nobody identified the massive problems that were developing in the dysfunctional finance industry. Even now, nobody knows what to do, except to try applying billions of dollars and if that fails, see whether more billions will work somewhere else.

The republic is not lost, even though the situation is grim. Huge numbers of people who are ready and able to work have lost their jobs. The pain is personal and growing. But a spirit of optimism was stirred in the election of Barack Obama, who combines the active ingredients of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Democracy has found a leader in the nick of time.

Does God use email?

Volunteer communicators for God have urged me to vote for John McCain for president because, they say, that’s what God wants.

The messengers tell me that God approves of McCain’s political position on abortion. There’s no mention of what God thinks about McCain’s decision to divorce his first wife and marry a beautiful heiress.

Announcements, usually by email, of God’s wishes at election time are more curious than convincing. There is no evidence of God’s intervention in earthly political processes.

If God becomes involved in elections, it is reasonable to wonder how Adolph Hitler was elected to office by the German people. Then there’s the election and reelection of Zimbabwe’s brutal president, Robert Mugabwe. There was no intervention in electing George W. Bush, who became an object of derision by millions who voted for him. Jefferson Davis was elected president of a Confederacy built on the backs of slaves.

Not everyone who worships God thinks that the Creator decides who will win and who will lose elections, wherever they are held. Too many scoundrels and incompetents win elections.

Certainly God is to be praised in prayer, and millions pray for the right outcome of human endeavors, including elections, visits to the doctor, rescue attempts and family disputes. But some campaigners go beyond that.

Is it blasphemy to claim God’s blessing in a partisan political campaign?

Does this show a lack of respect for Almighty God, and bring shame on the perpetrators?

I hear someone saying Amen.