Wednesday, February 09, 2011

The Obama Administrations Secret War Against Toyota

I don't think anybody can blame Obama or the federal government for seeming to come down a tad hard on Toyota when it looked like an electronics problem might have been causing sudden "acceleration syndrome", especially when it looked like it had cost lives, and continued to endanger others. It certainly didn't help that the company seemed to be in denial of its problems and obvious culpability.

Only it turns out they were not so culpable after all, and the problems with the giant auto-maker were not quite what they seemed to be at the time. In fact, a government report exonerated Toyota. The problem, when there really was one at all as opposed to mere driver error, was a problem with the floor mats.

This is according to a government report, mind you, but one which was not released until a few days ago, even though it has been available for months. Since, in fact, well before the election. It's almost as if the administration wanted to use this as a political issue, huh? Or it could be they were simply trying to engage in the tried and true tactic of destroy the competition, the point being the government is now part-owner of Toyota competitors GM and Chrysler. While this is a valid argument, I think it pales in significance to the fact that an even bigger owner, especially of GM, is the UAW, a staunch supporter and contributor to the Democratic Party.

But hey, its almost a relief that the Democrats might spend some of their time trying to wreck something besides the Constitution. But its also scary to contemplate whether or not this report would have ever seen the light of day if the Democrats had won the election.