George Will : A "Car Czar" - Silliness on Stilts

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Designed by architects from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the Chicago firm that created many icons of postwar modernism, Ford's headquarters building has the sleek glass-and-steel minimalism that characterized up-to-date architecture in the 1950s, when America was at the wheel of the world and even buildings seemed streamlined for speed. Ford's building opened in 1956, a peak of American confidence -- one year before Sputnik shook Americans' faith in their technological supremacy and the Edsel shook their faith in the acumen of corporate America grown slothful from complacency.

Today the building is home to high anxiety. Yet CEO Alan ....

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