Detroit plan has GOP Careening out of control

[Perky]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20685.html

President Barack Obama may or may not be able to save the U.S. auto industry, but his dramatic restricting plan is already having some effect: It’s sent the highly disciplined GOP message machine careening out of control.

Sen. John McCain, the Republicans’ 2008 presidential candidate, accused Obama Monday of “unprecedented window dressing” and said his plan didn’t go far enough. But Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, complained that Obama was being tougher on Detroit than he’s been on Wall Street.

California Rep. Darrell Issa praised Obama for having “struck the right chord.” But Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander said Obama’s plan was “not the right direction.”

Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, co-chairman of the Senate Auto Caucus, said he was happy that the White House was “insisting that American auto companies receiving taxpayer dollars can stand on their own two feet eventually.” But Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker called Obama’s plan “a major power grab by the White House” that would leave the federal government with almost complete control over General Motors.


Two factors undermined any attempt at a unified GOP response: parochialism and timing.

Midwest auto state senators like Voinovich felt like they had to back Obama’s restructuring for Chrysler and General Motors, while Southern senators like Corker, who has significant foreign auto manufacturing interests in his home state, don’t like the preferential treatment they think Detroit is getting.

And it didn’t help that the Republicans were caught by surprise.

By the time lawmakers learned of Obama’s plans in a White House conference call Sunday night, the media were already reporting that the Obama administration had asked for the resignation of GM Chief Rick Wagoner — and gotten it.

[ErinBerin84]

1. So

John "I am suspending my campaign" McCain is accusing someone else of unprecedented window dressing.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Corker is a traitor to this country. He needs to fucking declare his allegiance to Japan

and move the hell out of the US.

[Jennicut]

3. He loves them more then us. He should move there. What a tool.

[Inuca]

4. Corker is annoying

and unfortunatley smarter than I thought at first. But in all fairness those Tennessee Nissan (is there anybody else?) jobs are Amrican jobs, not Japanese jobs. This by the way is not meant to defend his reaction, I heard him a bit yesterday and he was rather abominable. It's just that things are not black and white.

[TwilightGardener]

5. He was, and remains, hell-bent on busting the UAW and the American auto industry, all to

benefit Tennessee. Sorry, I can't stand him.

[Inuca]

6. I absolutely agree with that

and can't stand him either. I had some hope for him a while back when I heard him some committee meeting or another making a certain amount of sense and seeming to have good will. But that was way back before th election and before the economy went haywire.

[uponit7771]

7. He's an asshole, I don't know why no one is call that guy out....