I don’t know if I would call Detroit an economic success story for anyone, black people included. I doubt black people in Detroit are doing better than black people in say, Seattle or the Bay Area – no matter the era.

Plus, all the transplants are in the South and that means a significant plurality of the workers at those transplants are most definitely black folks and they are making a good, justifiable living. Those black folks in the transplants – like their white counterparts – are less worried about losing everything right about now, and aren’t depending on their neighbor (whatever color that person may be) for a handout to keep the lights on.

Not particularly directed at the author, but sometimes I think that some of the “best and brightest” should just stick to cars.

Just exactly what would YOU have Congress do about the auto bail out that they are not doing? Of course it is true that some sort of bailout is coming. If the doomsayers are right about the huge job loss that would result of the Big 3 shutting down, the loss to our economy and industrial base would be inestimable – 50B or even 10B might look like peanuts in comparison.

Many of us bitch and complain about the bailout of the auto industry because we at least have SOME knowledge about it. Most of us understand the enormous bailout of the financial sector in only the vaguest terms and just hope to hell that those dumping off those billions know what they are doing.

2. As stated above, Obama will continue his practice of voting present in this matter, like he does with everything. Congress will come to him with a bailout bill and “make” him sign it, happy to do so in one press conference and reluctant to do so in another.

On one side you’ve got the Nader-frenching Grape-nuts who the Democrats worry every election will bolt for the Green Party. They’ve hated GM ever since “Unsafe at any Speed” or were raised on tomes like it. Seeing GM slip beneath the oncoming waves of green-ish Prii and Civics is right up their alley, a complete moral and rhetorical victory for them. I am sure this crew would love to take any dime pondered for the Shrinking 3 and invest it in rainbow-powered cars or what-not. Plus, it moves us one step closer to their dream of all Americans driving biofuel powered metaphorical condoms-on-wheels.

But on the other side you’ve got the New Dealer-ish Socialism Now crowd who love union jobs in rusty run-down cities. This is the paleozoic Machine Politics Democratic party that ol’ Joe P. Kennedy essentially owned and managed to get his kids in power. They are a shrinking bunch with the old labor unions as the dimming core to the dying star this social segment is. They are increasingly desperate (see Card Check) to survive. They know what we at TTAC know, if these outfits go into bankruptcy, the old order they represent will no longer have a legal shield and they will be eliminated from the American zeitgeist.

The Democrats have always played identity politics, and it all works so long as you have a common enemy (evil white WASP males). But you see that when the discreet identities themselves collide (see Democratic Primary) it gets ugly for them. I imagine behind closed doors, these kinds of identities are expressing themselves to Mr. Obama and his interlocutors, and the pressure on him must be intense indeed.

Resolutely is a good word, but I would probably have applied it to the UAW.

I would cheer Obama if he said no to a bailout, however if he does, it wouldn’t surprise me.