89-Year-Old Kerkorian Turns Up the Heat on GM

Kirk Wants Troubled Automaker to “Fully Explore” Joining Renault – Nissan Alliance

WSJ Online is on the ball with a short rehash of Tracinda’s letter to GM’s Richard Wagoner, saying that Renault and Nissan are receptive to the idea of GM joining their partnership-alliance and buying from GM a significant minority interest. Shares of GM shot up about 12% in pre-market trading. Helpfully, WSJ has a link to the letter in a GM filing with the SEC today. NYTimes takes the easy route and uses Reuters for this story. Both neglect to mention that Kerkorian’s private investment corp, Tracinda (named for his daughters, Tracy & Linda), owns approximately 10% of GM’s shares.

WSJ adds a modicum of analysis—to be fair, this is a breaking story—and says that GM’s forecast highlighted the long road ahead for the company, given its Sisyphus-like task of wooing customers for its giant SUVs and pickup trucks when petrol is over $3/gal. As WSJ points out, while the buyouts and early retirements of 35,000 workers should help the company cut costs, demand has fallen for its larger models, which is precisely where GM earns its dough.

See:

WSJ, posted 9:38am

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115167274274595315.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

NYTimes, accessed 9:38am

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/business/30wire-kerkorian.html

Pick of the day: Happy Hamdan

NYTimes.com leads with the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and even the Wall Street Journal gives it fourth billing today online.

Both papers are labeling the Court’s 5-3 decision, which held that the current military commission’s ‘structure and procedures’ violate both the Military Code of Justice and the Geneva Convention, as a major defeat for the Bush Administration. Oddly enough, it is the NYTimes that ends on a more sanguine note about the Administration’s options. The paper quotes a counterterrorism law professor saying that “ ‘The court really rescued the administration by taking it out of this quagmire it's been in . . . .[T]he ruling may clear the way to a resolution of the murky status of detainees held at Guantánamo, in Afghanistan and in secret detention centers run by the Central Intelligence Agency.’” Somehow I doubt Mr. Bush will be writing any thank you notes to the Justices any time soon.

While both papers cite J. Breyer’s concurrence saying that “ ‘Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check,'" both fail to point out that Breyer was taking from now-retired J. Sandra Day O’Connor’s plurality opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), which put the Court’s stamp of approval on military tribunals for enemy combatants (including US citizens) in the first place.

Ironically, Scalia issued a powerful dissent in Hamdi, saying that unless Congress suspended habeas corpus, Hamdi—a US citizen—could not be detained without charge. Of course, both papers don’t dig deep enough into the earlier opinions here and merely write that Scalia is mad as hell that the Court is preventing Bush from effectively carrying out military operations.

Bottom line: The Times easily wins for completeness of coverage on this story. The Journal doesn’t quote anybody besides the Justices and Mr. Bush, while the Times talks to several players, including Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy JAG attorney representing Mr. Hamdan, another member of the defense team, and an attorney from the Washington Legal Foundation, which filed a friend of the court supporting the Administration. The Journal does score points for its informative page dedicated to this year’s most divided Supreme Court decisions with summaries and quotes from the majority and dissenting opinions.

See:

Court Disallows Guantanamo Trials, In Setback for Bush Antiterror Policy, posted 6/29/06 at 7:54pm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115158233093494103.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

Supreme Court Blocks Guantánamo Tribunals, posted 6/29/06 at 5:18pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/washington/29cnd-scotus.html?hp&ex=1151640000&en=1aa0983620edfa9b&ei=5094&partner=homepage