Rochelle Riley on the car talk between Brian Williams and Jay Leno last night

http://www.freep.com/article/20081205/COL10/312050009

December 5, 2008

Detroit is America's engine

BY ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

So I'm sitting and watching Jay Leno interview NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. And the conversation turned to cars.

Leno talked about his Corvette ZR1 and Williams talked about his Mustang GT.

"I enjoy a good full throated American automobile," Williams said, adding that he's got a Jeep Cherokee in the driveway because his garage is too full to hold both cars.

When Leno asked him about whether the automakers should get a bailout, his answer was exquisite in its simplicity:

"I don't know that we can afford to let these guys fail," he said.

"Just Chrysler.. 30 million Americans have a Chrysler product in their driveway, The day Chrysler is allowed to fail, they look at their car as having a little less value. Where are they going to get parts and service? What happens to the employees at the local dealership? What happens to the employees of the people who make the tires, drive the cars to the dealership, all of that…

He and Leno acknowledged that Detroit had made bad cars for years, made mistakes, but, as Leno reminded, Wall Street got a bailout the bailout even though their crimes seemed pre-meditated.

"These guys on Wall Street -- that looked like a con job, these phony mortgages, that looked like out and out fraud. That doesn't seem like a mistake. And yet they get a bailout."

And then Williams offered a final word from an actual Detroiter, a friend he called Bernie:

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Detroit's the most resilient city in the nation and if they decide to build a car out of cell phone batteries, the auto workers are ready to go.

Whatever the idea is, just put them to work. No one woke up every day and said let's go build bad cars. They were following corporate orders in an old structure that's gotta change.”

And the audience applauded loudly.

Let's not give a free ride to the people that shower in the morning before work, but hammer the people who shower when they get home from work. -- paraphrased from Hardball, and I think there is a real American values point to be made there.