Solargate: Worse and Worse
Saturday, 24 September 2011 17:04 Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest
The Solyndra scandal threatens to blow up into the first truly major scandal of the Obama administration. This is, as Via Meadia readers know, bad news for the administration on several levels; besides the obvious ethical issues, the Solyndra scandal makes the President appear incompetent or worse when it comes to job creation. The scandal supports some key Republican attack narratives and as long as it is in the news the Democrats will suffer.
The spectacle of company chiefs taking the Fifth Amendmentbefore Congress means that the scandal has real legs. At this point the White House must brace itself for a steady drip, drip, drip of Solyndra coverage for some time, creating a public sense that cronyism, green naivete and incompetence cause the federal government to waste stimulus money without creating jobs. (GWPF)
Solyndra executives repeatedly invoke the Fifth
DARREN SAMUELSOHN
Solyndra executives repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment this morning as House lawmakers pressed them to answer questions about the company’s financial collapse and any hopes of repaying their $535 million federal loan guarantee. (Politico)
Solyndra gave bright forecasts as it ran out of cash
Just before solar panel maker Solyndra scrambled in August to get more cash from private investors and better loan terms from federal bureaucrats, top company officials went on a political road show. (Reuters)
Inside dirt on clean energy schemes: they don’t work
Chris Berg
A green energy scandal in the US has lessons for Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.
IF JULIA Gillard isn’t paying attention to what’s happening in Washington DC right now, she should be. The first major scandal of the Obama administration looks similar to one of the centrepieces of her carbon price package. (Sydney Morning Herald)
