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 »

• WE HEAR TACO BELL IS HIRING??: More lovely news from the American automotive industry, formerly a shining light of this rich nation’s manufacturing sector, and now simply a bunch of commies: “NEW YORK – General Motors Corp. will offer buyouts to all of its hourly employees, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday, as the troubled automaker continues to slash costs… A union official told The Associated Press then that GM would offer $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 car voucher for workers who retire early and those who simply leave the company.” Oooh, we’d take that. $25,000 cars! You can just drive around forever in one of those things. [AP]

America, meet your new presidential limousine, this scary-ass legoland 100-foot-long bumper boat. It is a General Motors Cadillac! MORE »

Jesus god, Barack Obama’s new fortified palace/romper room/communications center/car looks like it just drove out of the Thunderdome. It is a hideous multi-paneled Wagon of Doom that shoots laser beams out of its headlights and can decapitate a man. It was forged in the fiery furnaces of hell and custom-finished by leather-tongued demons who poured the Elixir of Pan into the gas tank, for greater fuel economy. Early reports say it is a Cadillac. [CNN]

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 »

Pat Buchanan has written a real ripsnorter of a column in the American Conservative about how the Republicans are a bag of salty dicks, for hating Detroit. Detroit could be worse — for example, they could be Japs: “But why this ‘Let-them-eat-cake!’ coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.” [American Conservative]

• UGH: “DETROIT — Chrysler says it will close all 30 of its manufacturing plants for a month starting Friday.” It’ll be like a vacation for auto workers, except they won’t travel anywhere and will enter poverty. We just couldn’t afford that $14 billion loan! [AP]

Reporter David Leonhardt at your liberal elitist rag the New York Times has a little thingy today about how nobody wants to buy American cars these days, and this is why Detroit finds itself in such an awkward no-cash-havin’ situation. While it is true that nobody wants to buy American cars, it is also true that nobody wants to buy any cars, Japanese, Korean, German, whatever, and your editor, after doing a fair amount of crapping on Detroit lately, has begun to see the error of her ways. MORE »

See that chrome jalopy there with the gal in it, just cruisin’? It’s a Dodge Neon, a spunky lil’ thing that the kids are always buying for their first cars. Well this lucky teen bought it used in late 2005 — only a handful of months after Barack Obama traded it in! To go work in the Senate! Sounds like a newspaper story to us! [Chicago Tribune]

The congressman with the best accent since Jackie Gleason has encountered a number of ethics problems lately, related to his reluctance to pay for basic necessities and his willingness to take money from anyone for anything. Anyhow, he has a 1972 Mercedes Benz, and it has been sitting with an expired registration in some indoor House of Representatives lot, and it got towed. Charlie Rangel is awesome in so, so many ways. [CBS]

People in Detroit hate nothing more than the Toyota Prius, because it is made by the “Orientals” in awful Japan. And unemployed blogger Meghan McCain, it so happens, drives one of these vehicles because she is a close friend of the Japanese President, Hirohito. Last week, John McCain tried to denounce his “daughter” by telling the local media that Meghan bought the dumb car herself, which is of course a lie, because Meghan McCain has no personal source of income. [Detroit News]