Yesterday's New York Times included a lengthy reprise/meditation on the worst business deal of all time - the disastrous merger/takeover of Time Warner by/with AOL. For all the substantive reasons this deal cratered, never underestimate the power of venality to scupper the best laid plans. To wit:
"The optimism surrounding the deal was brief. In May of 2000, the dot-com bubble began to burst and online advertising began to slow, making it difficult for AOL to meet the financial forecasts on which the deal was based. The world began moving quickly to high-speed Internet access, putting AOL's ubiquitous dial-up service in jeopardy.
The companies had another problem: both sides seemed to hate one another."
Yes, well, that couldn't have helped.
And while comparisons are odious, there's an obvious parallel to the potential strategic advantage seemingly afforded by an entente cordiale between l'equipe orange et l'equipe rouges. At the grunt level, the animus between these potential partners makes AOL/Time Warner look like the soul of wedded bliss.
From my experience Dippers think Liberals are cynical hypocrites whereas Grits view the party to their left as goggle-eyed innocents an/or unreconstructed Maoists. So, I'm not betting the house that a workable deal is a lock in time for the next electoral fracas.
What I do know is that prorogation, Afghanistan and Copenhagen are pretty close to a perfect engine for generating public outrage. The Tories are counting on two things to tide them over: time and its handmaiden, apathy. Here's hoping the opposition doesn't hand them both on a platter.