This is the Memorial Day weekend, when we commemorate our fallen heroes and raise our cancer risk by burning chopped beef. Listening to the media, it looks and sounds like the fallen heroes of the year are not the ones who gave and give their lives in ceaseless wars, but the auto industry. It didn’t quite die. It was medevaced in a TARP and helped by the PTFOA to get over its PTSD.

Instead of thanking the nation’s heroes (he did so in an afterthought, asking for “single acts of kindness”) VP Biden thanked himself:

“When President and I came into office, we faced an auto industry on the brink of extinction, total collapse. At the time, many people thought the President should just let GM and Chrysler go under. They didn’t think the automobile industry was essential to America’s future. The President disagreed – and, in addition, he wasn’t willing to walk away from the thousands of hardworking UAW members who worked at GM and Chrysler.”

By taking full credit for the bailout, Biden once and for all put the argument to rest that the bailout had been inherited from G.W., and that the heirs had no other choice. Time for another pat on the administration’s shoulders:

“Because of what we did, the automobile industry is rising again. Manufacturing is coming back, and our economy is recovering and it is gaining traction.”

Some (see below) have a different opinion. The video is above and in full length, but don’t let the hamburgers go up in flames while you watch.

Meanwhile, over at the National Public Radio, an organization which is generally not under suspicion of right-of-center leanings, Memorial Day was celebrated by yet another commemoration of the heroic rescue of our auto industry.

That program was headlined “Chrysler Repays Billions, Was Bailout Worth It?” Which signaled some skepticism.

NPR is a fair and balanced station, so they had someone who was pro bailout, and someone who was against.

The pro-bailout-person, Micheline Maynard, senior editor for CHANGING GEARS, the public radio project that looks at reinventing the Rust Belt, offered only lukewarm support for the bailout:

“There a lot of people who said the court system is available. Why don’t we put the auto industry – or at least General Motors and Chrysler – through that same system? But there were also fears because the recession was, I think, at its deepest point a couple of years ago, when this all – the subject came up.

There was also worries about the auto parts part of the industry, because if Chrysler had gone bankrupt, for example, and liquidated, these auto parts suppliers served not only General Motors and Ford, but Toyota and some of the other foreign carmakers. So that was part of the argument, that we can’t let the whole network go down.

But there is this other argument that you have other ways to do this, and this is the cost of doing business. Some companies make it. Other companies don’t.“

The anti-bailout-man, Dan Ikenson of the Cato Institute, generally called “a libertarian think tank,” first said that “I don’t think that we’re really in a position to measure” whether the bailout was worth it. But then he laid into the directors of the rescue operation:

“It should have gone to court. I think that we were in a sort of crisis mode, you know, as Rahm Emanuel, when he was in the White House, as he said: Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Paulson, former Secretary Paulson, told Congress they need to pass this financial bailout right away, or else we’re all doomed. It prevents us from really thinking clearly and with circumspection as to what we’re getting into.

So the costs of the rule of law, property rights were trampled with respect to the Chrysler bondholders, and this competitive process was stymied.

And so I think we need to – and if we look at the economy today, this regime uncertainty, which still persists – you know, we’ve been trying to come out of this recession. We’ve been moving slowly. Business is keeping money on the sidelines.”

We have linked to the full 30 minute program (sorry for the empty box …), but again, don’t forget those hamburgers.

It sure was a memorable Memorial Day. We’ll remember it as the beginning of the Presidential campaign 2012.

Did you check the $3 box on your tax return?

Despite the fact that the Greatest Generation keeps me cornered at my info desk for 45 minutes while telling me filthy dirty jokes, I know if not for everyone’s grandpa I’d probably be heil-ing allegiance to the flag of the Rising Sun or some German/Japanese combo thereof. I can’t imagine any 18-year-old boy I’ve ever known doing anything nearly as heartbreakingly heroic as some of the things these men and women did, although I know plenty have since and plenty, sadly, will in the future.

There are many legacies left to us by these old cranky dudes who fought so I could have the freedom to say whatever I want in my blog, but I think one of the strongest culturally is the love of the automobile. They are the ones who spent that post-war disposable income on those big, beautiful machines that became instant status symbols by their sheer power and heft. They are the ones that started the grand American tradition of the summer road trip and backseat shenanigans, and without them we’d probably never have those little shaky-shaky hula girl dash ornaments.

Basically, without them cars probably wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. In honor of Memorial Day, here are some of the cars that helped those kids coming home from the Pacific and Europe remember what it was like to live again.

Buick Special

Buick’s entry-level full-size vehicle. Despite having two doors, which most parents would eschew today, the Special was touted as the perfect family car because of its big back seat.

Cadillac Coupe de Ville

Before Viagra, there was Cadillac. Every man born before the Depression has a major hard-on for this car. It is their generation’s status symbol. Me, I’ll take that gorgeous Harry Winston necklace. I miss the merlettes in the emblem, don’t you?

Chevrolet Fleetmaster Sport Sedan

Imagine this bad boy in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb?

1947 Ford

This ad just cracked me up… “No other has 100 h.p.!” How quaint.

1946 Oldsmobile

The ad copy here is very telling of the point at which the industry stood: “Look to Olds for all that’s new!” The post-war world was new and these soldiers were coming home to start new careers and new families while enjoying a new prosperity that most of them had never before experienced.

Happy Memorial Day to all those who defend us every day. If things had gone differently a couple of generations ago, we’d all be driving Volkswagens and Toyotas. Come to think of it …

The Booth Babe is an anonymous auto show model who dishes about what really goes on behind the scenes. Read her blog at http://doyoucomewiththecar.blogspot.com. And if you treat her nicely, read her each Sunday at Thetruthaboutcars.com