A few months ago, we were all thrilled by the incredible airmanship of Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, who put an Airbus down on the frigid Hudson River so skillfully, so professionally, that not a single life was lost.
Compare that heroic feat with the emerging story of a commuter jet that crashed in February in Buffalo. The jet was apparently being flown by two pilots who had never experienced severe icing in flight. Now, you might think the chances of severe icing in Buffalo are pretty good, especially in February, and you might think that only an ice-savvy pilot would be assigned that route. I remember flying into the old Hong Kong airport, the one where a normal glide path was impossible because of an inconveniently placed mountain, so you had to bank sharply to make your final approach. A 747 pilot landing at that airport had to be not only 747-qualified, but Kai-Tak qualified. The problem with Buffalo is not its airport, but its weather. A pilot who has landed 50 or 60 times in severe icing will not be spooked. He or she will not try to fight a stall by raising the nose, as the pilot of the commuter jet allegedly did, sealing the fate of 49 people on the aircraft.
I thought of that tragedy while listening to analysts debating the merits of President Obama’s plan to fight a stalled economy. The President has decided to raise taxes directly on the high earners and indirectly (through “cap and trade” energy costs) on everyone else. He also wants to implement universal health insurance, rescue the banks and the automobile industry (and any other domestic industry with a large, unionized work force), and ramp up the war in Afghanistan.
I don’t think he can pull it off, any more than a pilot can correct a stall by pulling up on the nose. He has to lower the nose to increase airspeed, just as President Obama has to lower taxes to increase consumer spending. Because the deficit is huge, that will mean deferring the health plan. (That’s not a bad idea anyway. Adding 50 million people to the insurance rolls sounds like a noble idea until you try to figure out where we’re going to get all those extra doctors, nurses, hospital beds, etc.)
I have admired the President’s oratory, his political skills, and his natural leadership ability. Most of all, I liked his boast that he would subordinate ideology to “what works.” But attacks on Chrysler bondholders, executive salaries, and corporate jets are all born of ideology, not pragmatism. Alas, he is sounding more like a politician and less like a pilot every day. But now we are in a terrible ice storm, and his other gifts aren’t much help. Experience does count. The worst of it is, we are all passengers in the plane Captain Obama is flying.
