Love doesn't take you far in politics, but until last Wednesday, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, might not have known it. "I love George W. Bush," Welch said during the presidential campaign. Bush loved Welch back, considering him for a Cabinet spot and earlier this summer dispatching members of his Administration to Brussels to lobby the European Union on behalf of Welch's proposed--and ultimately rejected--merger with Honeywell.
But the political dream couple hit the rocks last week when the Environmental Protection Agency ordered GE to begin a much debated dredging of the Hudson River for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), probable...