This is from the same speech:
On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.
We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.
And:
It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.
What he meant was no more bailouts, starting...NOW. A la Kramer from the episode in which he pledged not to talk anymore.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou were expecting coherence?
And yet, he will probably get re-elected.
HELP US MITCH DANIELS! YOU'RE OUR ONLY HOPE!
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Seriously. I'll give up to $10K to help in the Mitch Daniels draft effort. Find me a credible effort. Where do I send the check?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseuh, is right. uh, let's see if anyone notices if I contradict myself.
and while we're at it....
uh, never mind that Ford received no bailout....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, liberals ARE the kings of cognitive dissonance. This is the same people, after all, that gave us "Qu**rs for Palestine".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe administration sees no contradiction between such passages. On the contrary, they fit each other perfectly. It's just a matter of contextualizing terms:
When he speaks of "from top to bottom," he doesn't betray his earlier statements because he makes no mention of the simple fact that he considers there to be different scales at work from which he can judge. It's bad for you and I, but when you pivot to either the President or, far more importantly, his cronies, it's not simply perfectly fine but in fact a good in itself.
Get with the program. He decries there being "two Americas," except when there are in fact two separate Americas... when it suits him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseClearly now is the time to start applying the same rules and the whole auto bailout thing happened before now. Kind of like saying "It is time to go on a diet" right after coming back from a cruise where you gained ten pounds in a week.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOne more thing: why is it that Obama continues to try to take credit for things entirely removed from either himself or his actions? They didn't touch Ford; as a result, any actions on the part of Ford can't be attributed to Obama. Actually, given that the auto bailouts were Bush policy, the whole thing is downright laughable.
Criticize an action, while simultaneously taking credit for it when it wasn't even yours to take credit for. Lord, I wish the media would pounce on the man like they ought to.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm speechless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI like Mitch. He's cool, calm, reasoning....but has the "passion" and verve and style of a bowl of quatro-triticale porridge. Our only hope?
No....there is another....
Isnt' there? Somewhere?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePresident Obama was obviously talking about regulating the financial industry so no bailouts are necessary. This is something that Republicans who want to repeal Dodd-Frank and continue the status quo before the bailouts disagree with. Instead of regulating the financial industry, Republicans want to put us in a situation where we either have to bail them out, or face something like 25% unemployment in the case of a major financial collapse. Because regulation is always and forever evil, no matter how necessary.
Remember, Republican politicians said that we should not save General Motors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRepublicans didn't say we shouldn't save GM, because they didn't need "saving." Do you not understand that "bankruptcy" and "going out of business" are not synonyms? An orderly bankruptcy would have allowed them to potentially restructure the union contracts that are the ultimate cause of their inability to make a profit.
Your "Rep's ate regulations" is a straw man. Not wanting too many reg's is not the same as wanting none at all. Reg's aren't inherently bad. Dodd-Frank is bad because it piles on new reg's while leaving wide open the option of more bailouts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd they were right, because GM didn't need saving. They could have restructured on their own, like Ford, without government taking the company and giving it a big chunk of it to the union.
How many Airlines have filed for bankruptcy? How many of them are actually no longer with us? And being bought by competitors isn't the same as going out of business. But GM was never even in danger of being purchased.
Now Chrysler might not have survived without government assistance, but this is the second time in my lifetime Chrysler has been bailed out by the governement, and I'm only 33 years old. How many do-overs should they get? Of course, now they're owned by fiat, so they're no more an American car company than Toyota. Sure, they may have a few more executive jobs (those evil 1 percenters) here in the states, but toyota has a tech center in MI (where they design cars), and they build cars in Indiana (among other locations).
The government just flushed needless money away on GM.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDelusion can be treated.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRead any Obumbles speech and you'll find the same garbled nonsense. None of them make any sense, which is why no one ever quotes Obama, the great orator. In the 80's, even Reagan's enemies quoted his speeches. Politicians of both parties still quote his speeches. The reason is they were great speeches that appealed to the mind as well as the heart.
With Obumbles, the speech is just part of the mood piece. He's like a Barry White album. Barry White's lyrics were infantile gibberish, but coupled with the music, the baritone and the moment, they were popular. That's an Obama speech. The setting, the place, the crowd all make it feel groovy. But in the end, like a Barry White album, you get bleeped.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse1. He bet on electric cars and the FIAT 500. We bought SUVs.
2. He bet on unions. We bougtht SUVs.
3. He bet on government ingenuity. We bought SUVs instead.
He saved a million jobs and created another 160,000? No, this is just like his energy policies creating more carbon-based energy. (And, forgive me for being distrustful, but do those jobs numbers depend entirely on subsidies and bailouts and do they exclude Ford, Toyota and Honda?) It's good to hear that Michigan is restored to its 1950s heights, though.
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