Drive as I Say, Not as I Do

This could complicate the auto bailout:

WASHINGTON -- The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars.

Among the eight members named Friday to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and the 10 senior policy aides who will assist them in their work, two own American models. Add the Treasury Department's special adviser to the task force and the total jumps to three.

The Detroit News reviewed public records to discover what many of the task force and staff members drove, but information was not available on all of the officials, and records for some states were not complete.

At least two task force members don't own a car, and there are still two open slots on the 10-member panel that will be filled by the secretaries of labor and commerce, who have not yet been appointed.

The co-chairs of the task force -- Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers -- both own foreign automobiles.

Geithner owns a 2008 Acura TSX, registered in New York. He once owned a 1999 Honda Accord and a 2002 Acura MDX, according to public records.

So, I guess Obama is the about the only one in the Administration driving an American car.

I'll bring up a story I've told before. For awhile the bank I worked for was owned by a parent company in Farmington Hills, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit). That company had a policy that only American cars could be parked in the employee parking lot. If you chose to buy an import, fine, park it somewhere else. They were adamant about supporting the local car industry.

Obama's gonna have to do something similar with this bailout bunch if anyone is going to believe they're serious about saving the U.S. auto industry.