Back when George Bush was the 36th best president of the United States, he suggested that the incoming administration appoint a Benevolent Despot Emperor of Automobiles, colloquially known as a “car czar,” to tend to the heaping pile of unsold inventory and feces that is the American automotive industry. And it seemed like Barack Obama would appoint this czar, in deference to tradition. MORE »

Watch out, America, because David Brooks has written another one of his famous “theme” columns, in which he takes on a gimmick — like pretending to be Kierkegaard, or a doctor researching some new Obama disease, or a cartoon Asian Buddhist Negro being attacked by the Internet — and proceeds to embarrass himself for hundreds of words. Today he pretends to be a historian, or maybe just a Wikipedia writer, composing a brief summary of how during the Obama years, the majority party took a so-so economy, ran up the budget and made so many bad decisions that the American people started distrusting the government and other institutions of power completely. Just to repeat, he says this is what the future will look like. MORE »

In a calculated move designed to insult America, Senator Chris Dodd has signed a book deal. His book will be out in June. Not that he’s actually penning a single word of it — it is “By Sen. Christopher J. Dodd with [random writing slave]” — but c’mon Dodd, save the heroic legislative deal-cutting memoir for when the unemployment rate starts going down (in 400 years). Worse yet, the working title is Thirteen Days: How the Financial Crisis Changed the Politics of Washington. Fuck you, Cuban communists! MORE »

This poor stimulus bill has been kicked around and blown up a million times, completely dismembered, bathed in acid — basically Robocop, except boring, and with money. So what secret provisions did House and Senate negotiators slip into the bill into order to win the eternal fealty of the lobster queen Susan Collins and the other handful of senators who hold the entire fate of the free world in their parsimonious little fists? MORE »

Well, America, this is what you get when you elect a COLLEGE PROFESSOR for president: a person who actually responds to questions, in occasionally exhaustive detail, with topic sentences and conclusions. Kinda weird, huh? But just wait till he finishes up and tries to leave the room through a locked door, and pulls a crazy goofy face and trots over to an unlocked door. Then you will remember what it’s like to have the other kind of president. MORE »

Brian Ross is a national treasure because he is an actual investigative journalist who investigates things. He got this gal who ran a Wall Street hooker ring to turn over her client list, and boy howdy! It is full of, uh, bankers. Probably very interesting to people who know anything about Wall Street! Anyway, many of these bankers and stock brokers used their corporate cards, of course, to fund their extremely expensive habits, so there you go, your bailout money is going to pay off the hooker bill of a New York real estate investor who liked to wear women’s underwear. [Talking Points Memo]

Ok let’s see what sort of DRACONIAN MEASURES Barack Obama has proposed for our nation’s permanent underclass of persecuted corporate CEOs, whose only sin was caring so much about their companies that they continued to happily accept record pay and bonuses while their businesses lost literally billions of dollars and had to be bailed out by the government. MORE »

SELF-PARKING CAR WILL SAVE AMERICAN AUTO INDUSTRY: This is why Ford don’t need no stinking bailout — all it needs is some good old-fashioned frivolous vehicular techmologies nobody wanted in the first place! “The technology uses ultrasonic sensors on the front and rear of the vehicle, combined with electric power steering to angle and guide it into a snug parking space — all with the push of a button.” Awesome, we will take twenty million of these pointless thingamajigs. [AP]

The shameful publicity whore Barack Obama will be holding his FIFTH press conference of the WEEK today, while the ever modest George W. Bush holds his first in months. (Ha ha we kid, he tore himself away from his Wii to mutter some not-very-encouraging things about our teetering American economy, once, in early November. The stock market tanked.) So let’s see what our bold and fearless leader has to say about resurrecting an industry singlehandedly brought down by the famously corrupt United Auto Workers, who keep promoting this Socialist idea that people should receive “money” in exchange for their “labor.” MORE »

Wonkette Operative “Michael C” reports that this TARP-bailout hearing at the House is providing endless lulz. Why is Illinois Rep. Pete Roskam jabbering about tapping people’s backsides and the “greased chute of government”? Because he’s a Republican! It’s all about ass. MORE »

Continuing the thème du jour, etc. Thanks to Wonkette commenter “Freakishlystrong.” [MSNBC/AP]