Dead and alive government style

On April 26, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden (D) triumphantly proclaimed

If you are looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it's pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.

Governor Romney's national security policy would return us to the past we have worked so hard to move beyond. In this regard, it is no different than what Governor Romney has proposed for our economy -- taking us back to the failed policies that got us into the mess President Obama has dug us out of.

Indeed, bin Laden dead, GM alive was one of the pithy Obama-Biden campaign's verbal bumper sticker slogans used again and again to mock Mitt Romney's (R) "failed policies."

But that was then, this is fast forward nine months now. My, how the world has changed.

Like Franco, bin Laden is still dead. Unlike Franco, bin Laden's philosophy, strategy and tactics remain very much alive as the horror in the Algerian gas fields and the fighting in neighboring Mali demonstrate.

Mali. After the third debate, Romney was mocked as a war monger for stating the truth--that this seemingly obscure land locked north African country was a terrorist training ground. Uhm, they' not laughing now. France is begging for help to fight the terrorists there.

So how is Government (General) Motors doing?

Four years after an expensive government bailout of the company, the government has begun selling its remaining stock in the company--at a major loss. That means the taxpayers, including auto workers, have lost money.

The bailout has rankled many taxpayers who thought the government shouldn't have interfered with the company's business. Some still call GM "Government Motors."

President Obama, who was responsible for engineering much of the bailout, touted his role in the 2012 presidential election, saying it saved 1 million jobs and prevented the collapse of America's auto industry. GM has said that once the shares are sold, it expects its sales to increase. Some people have refused to buy GM cars and trucks as long as the government owns a stake.

The government is still $21.5 billion in the hole on the GM bailout. Breaking even would require selling the remaining 300 million shares for an average of about $70 each - more than double the current trading price.

But hey, it is alive. But will it survive?