Posted by Matt Purdue

So what to do with GM and friends? Fascinating story in the New York Times hints at how GM and other automakers are
failing at the public relations game as they beg and plead for a bailout from the federal government (e.g. taxpayers).
Michelle Maynard notes that op/ed writers, lawmakers and the public in general are blaming automakers for their own troubles. And in that very American tradition, we’re telling the auto industry to take its lumps and pull itself up by its bootstraps. After all, the automakers have for years been fighting higher fuel efficiency standards, insisting on making gas-thirsty trucks and SUVs in a world faced with volatile fuel prices and a global-warming crisis. And many American cars have slipped in the reliability ratings behind even South Korean models from the likes of Hyundai and Kia.
But what’s really going on here? Bottom line is that we Americans have a love affair with gas-guzzlers. For years, Ford’s F-150 pickup and its chief competitor, Chevy’s Silverado, were America’s best-selling vehicles. Now get this: falling gas prices have spurred so much demand for SUVs that workers at GMs plant in Texas who assemble behemoths like the Cadillac Escalade are expected to be on
overtime for the rest of the year turning out these monsters. This is 2008. How much more evidence do stupid Americans need that the actions of their gas-pedal foot correlate directly with rising temperatures, volatile weather, melting icecaps and drowning polar bears? And, really, who is an auto company CEO to stop them from driving a Cadillac Escalade (12 miles per gallon in the city)?