Solyndra-Gate Opens Into A Large Den Of Corruption

IBD EDITORIALS

Corruption: The Obama administration promised a green energy future. What it delivered, though, is a present filled with rancid politics, aching failure and tawdry scandal.

At the top of the list is the Solyndra collapse. President Obama himself visited the California solar panel maker, lauding it for "leading the way toward a brighter, more prosperous future."

His administration poured $535 million in taxpayer dollars into the business, and wanted to add another $469 million even after it was known the company was going to fail.

Solyndra, though, is only one of many companies that have dined sumptuously at taxpayers' expense.

Several other businesses have been selected by the White House to waste other people's money simply because they fit in with the Obama vision of a green energy future. Merit, it seems, isn't considered when the money is passed out.

"Obama's green-technology program was infused with politics at every level," the Washington Post reported on Christmas Day after it had analyzed "thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails."

"The records, some previously unreported," said the Post, "show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra."

Going where few mainstream media outlets dare to tread because they don't want to hurt the president's re-election chances, the Post actually took a realistic look at the White House's $80 billion clean-technology program. It found that "as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the 'optics' in Washington and the impact that the company's failure could have on" a second term for Obama.

The Post also learned that many "venture capitalists with stakes in some of the companies backed by the administration" were contributors to Obama's 2008 campaign, while others "took jobs in the administration and helped manage the clean-energy program."

"Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra's collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-energy technology."

While the Post took a hard line, it was not the first left-leaning newspaper to do so. The New York Times provided similar coverage in August, reporting that "the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned."

But all this came out in 2011. Let's see how much these newspapers mention Solyndra and the green scandal when the 2012 campaign heats up.