Clem’s Chronicles: GM/Pelosi-CIA/Military Tribunals return

happy friday folks-enjoy your weekend! tonight’s editorial note—–

GENERAL MOTORS-The American auto industry’s extreme makeover continued today with General Motors telling some 1100 dealerships that  their relationship with the struggling automaker would end late next year. The criteria used for deciding which dealerships were let go-sales, customer service scores, and the location and condition of facilities-were much the same as those cited by Chrysler just 24 hours earlier when they announced a 20% reduction in their dealer affiliations. Chris Bury, reporting for WORLD NEWS, notes one big difference between the two American automakers announcements. Bury: “Unlike those cut by Chrysler, the GM dealers have 30 days to appeal today’s decision. Some are already lawyering up for a court fight.” Why such drastic moves? Viability in the 21st century. Bury notes that “GM wants a dealer network more like Toyota’s. Chevrolet and Toyota sell about the same number of cars in this country. But Chevrolet has three times as many dealers.” Unfortunately, surviving GM-affiliated dealerships still remain in a precarious position with one dealer quoted in Bury’s piece saying “Our fear is that, if GM is forced into bankruptcy, then all bets are off.” To underscore that point Bury adds that “All signs point to a bankruptcy filing soon. In fact GM’s chairman now says that bankruptcy is quote “probable.”

PELOSI/CIA-Well so much for this issue quietly going away. One day after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to her about it’s waterboarding of al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah at a September 2002 briefing, CIA Director Leon Panetta jumped into the fray. Panetta sent a letter to CIA employees which stated in part “Let me be clear. It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values.”  Jon Karl, reporting for WORLD NEWS, notes that “Republicans are rushing to the CIA’s defense and attacking the Speaker.” Karl’s report includes the following comments from former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who said “I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I have seen in my lifetime.” And the White House’s take? Karl says “the White House has made it clear the President would like the whole controversy to go away.” Karl reports that “the Speaker is now doing damage control, putting out a statement late today saying that she has great respect for the men and women of the intelligence agency.” Pelosi goes on to say that her beef is over “the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately inform Congress.” Karl adds “it is important to point out that those who briefed Speaker Pelosi at that September briefing were career intelligence officers. These were not political operatives from the Bush Administration.”

OBAMA WHITE HOUSE/MILITARY TRIBUNALS-As Jake Tapper reported last night, the White House today announced that military tribunals would resume to try prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. On WORLD NEWS, anchor George Stephanopoulos noted that President Obama had suspended them after criticizing how the Bush Administration was using them. He asked Tapper, why the change? Tapper: “There are detainees (the President) wants to bring to justice and there’s no other way to do so.” But there are changes from the way the Bush Administration’s trials worked-Tapper says that “the three biggest ones are, first of all, evidence obtained during any torture would not be admissible. There will be new limits on hearsay testimony and detainees will not have it count against them if they refuse to testify.”

HUBBLE TROUBLE:  The Atlantis astronauts spent another day making repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope and for today’s spacewalkers it was one for the books, as we heard from Gina Sunseri: “The crew had a long time outside the space shuttle Atlantis today – their six and a half hour spacewalk turned into a seven hour and 56 minute marathon – which now ranks as the 8th longest spacewalk in US history.  Mike Massimino and Mike Good installed six gyroscopes and three batteries aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. “  What happened was Mike and Mike had to put a refurbished pair of gyroscopes into the Hubble Space Telescope after a brand new set refused to go in.  Replacing the gyroscopes was the top priority of the repair mission, and the struggle had NASA on edge for two hours.  But eventually it all worked out and the Hubble ended up with four brand new gyroscopes and two refurbished ones, said to be almost as good as the new ones.  So what can we look forward to on Saturday, Gina? “Tomorrow’s spacewalk is the one described as the most difficult of the five back to back spacewalks. John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel  will install the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a device that will perform spectroscopy, the science of breaking up light into its individual components. The new science instrument replaces COSTAR, the corrective optics package first installed on the first Hubble servicing mission, that enabled the scientific instruments to compensate for the telescope’s misshapen primary mirror.”  (thanks to Ed Bailey for this entry)

REGIONAL AIRLINES/PILOTS SPEAK OUT-Lisa Stark has done several reports this week that called into question the safety of regional airlines. Tonight, Stark told us on WORLD NEWS, “that concern is being voiced to ABC NEWS by insiders, by the pilots themselves.” One such example-“There will be another Colgan 3407 if regulations and work rules are not changed. There are signs every day. Pilots flying tired, stressed, overworked and underpaid.” Other letters cite inexperience and poor training by some airlines. Stark took some of these emails and read them to an industry representative. Stopping short of agreeing that change was necessary, Faye Malarkey Black of the Regional Airline Association said “should the FAA…determine that a change needs to be made, we will comply fully.” For those playing the blame game, it’s a pretty crowded field, at least according to pilots. Stark: “Who’s to blame? Pilots say the government for weak rules, the unions for agreeing to them, the airlines for doing things on the cheap and the flying public for demanding low fares leaving airlines with little profit.”

MICHAEL PHELPS-Same as it ever was. Michael Phelps, racing competitively for the first time since the Beijing Olympics, did what he does best-he finished first. Shrugging off the land-based shenanigans that have made him tabloid fodder, Phelps silenced his critics with victories in the 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly at the Charlotte Ultraswim. Looking ahead to the World Championships this summer, Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman proclaimed him ahead of schedule. At least in the water…