As recent weeks’ events have exposed the failures of president Obama’s green-jobs revolution, liberal commentators have rushed to its defense: It’s still the right idea; we’re just doing it wrong. Thomas Friedman and other champions of green jobs consistently argue that China’s efforts will be more successful – if only because their state-owned enterprises can’t go bankrupt like Solyndra.

But apparently China’s green projects aren’t going so well either. Yesterday, a solar panel factory near Shanghai was shut down because it was producing deadly levels of pollution.

It’s hard to say who’s doing worse: Chinese projects that are producing toxic sludge, or the American ones producing toxic debt.