Friday has passed us by, which means another batch of Solyndra emails were released. Solyndra weekend email dumps have become the Saturday matinée serial cliffhangers of the 21st century, except a lot more expensive — but at least Flash Gordon’s rocket ship is now powered by algae and solar panels.
This weekend’s Solyndra dump tells the story of an administration that was considering having Solyndra execs sit in the First Lady’s box for the January 2011 State of the Union address, until a White House staffer saw the writing on the wall:
The idea of seating Solyndra officials with first lady Michelle Obama in the Capitol during the president’s nationally televised speech came up around the same time that DOE was preparing a controversial change to the company’s $535 million federal loan guarantee, which wound up increasing the risk to taxpayers.
But Daniella Gibbs Léger, director of White House message events, batted down the idea of a State of the Union invite before it could be raised among her superiors. “Can’t do Solyndra … they’ve run into some issues recently.
,” she wrote on Jan. 5, 2011.
So the director of White House message events knew Solyndra’s problems were not just bad, but “unhappy face emoticon” bad. It’s probably for the better… if people from Solyndra had been in the SOTU audience it might have ended up being too much for Joe Biden to handle.
It doesn’t end with that little anecdote. Writing at Hot Air, the timeline seemed odd to Ed Morrissey, considering the Department of Energy allowed Solyndra $75 million in new financing and a restructured deal after the January 2011 SOTU:
So the question raised is this: If the White House comms group and its climate czar both knew that Solyndra was an embarrassment, and so much so that the comms group nixed having Solyndra execs attend the 2011 SOTU in person, then why did Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu agree to restructure the loan less than a month later on such unfavorable terms?