RUSH: Last night on CNN’s In the Arena, Eliot Spitzer, who’s the single reason Anthony Weiner has hope, Eliot Spitzer, Client No. 9, got his own TV show out of the deal. He got his own television show out of his deal on CNN. Stop and think about that, got his own television show. Furthermore they paired him with a woman he didn’t like and she’s gone. Kathleen Parker. He didn’t like her, she’s histoire. So he gets the show all by himself. Yeah, so Weiner gets out of wherever he’s going, gets his own TV show, Weiner World, or maybe he’ll be the cohost with Spitzer, Weiner-Spitzer, Spitzer-Weiner, yeah, it would be Spitzer-Weiner.
At any rate, CNN’s In the Arena, Eliot Spitzer, Client No. 9, interviewed former General Motors vice-chairman Bob Lutz, and this is during a discussion about the auto bailout, and Eliot Spitzer said, “Why is there such political opposition right now to something that so manifestly worked and brought back a whole sector of the economy?”
LUTZ: I am a free market Republican by trade, but I get off the boat with Rush Limbaugh and everything when they criticize the — they’re even criticizing the Chevy Volt now as a product of the Obama administration. Hello, I thought of that in 2006. I think what this is is an unfortunate tendency to use whatever is available as a lever against the Obama administration, good, bad, or indifferent, and the auto bailout was absolutely — and it’s worked. Look, all three companies are profitable.
RUSH: That’s Bob Lutz, who I’ve met. I first met Bob Lutz at the annual cigar dinner that Marvin Shanken, the Cigar Aficionado puts on for the Prostate Cancer Foundation at the Four Seasons in New York, and Lutz at the time was working at General Motors. And he’s a great guy because he loves cars. He was a great car executive because he loved cars. Now, Rick Wagoner, who was the CEO at some later point in time, famously said, “I thought was coming in here to run a car company, but I’m actually running a health care operation,” cause that was the primary challenge that they had. And about, I don’t know, two, three years ago, I went up to Detroit and I had a tour General Motors, and Lutz was the guy that gave me the tour. We talked about the problems the automobile industry faces, what with all the regulations and mileage restrictions and global warming, all that’s having.
I don’t remember if he showed me the Volt or not. There wouldn’t have been anything to show other than a prototype. I don’t remember if he showed me that or not. I’m not saying the Volt is something Obama thought of or invented, but he’s claimed it, he’s subsidizing it, and he’s doing everything he can to get people in these cars against their wishes. The Volt, the electric car, period, we have not arrived in the place in the market where people actively want them. But my problem is not Lutz, and it’s not General Motors. It’s controlling authoritarian statist regimes like Obama who don’t have the slightest clue about how to run an automobile company, manufacturing company whatsoever, any kinda company, telling them how to do it and what to do is. And the bailout worked, all three companies profitable? Ford did not take any bailout money.
I don’t know under what measurement Chrysler and General Motors are said to be profitable. They still owe on the original loans, we’re told that they’re probably not gonna be forced to pay them all back. But, anyway, I have no animus for Bob Lutz. I respect him. This guy is a renaissance man. He flies fighter jets as a hobby. His business card, standing in front of one of his warplanes. The guy loves cars and so forth. But at any rate, the electric car? We all want General Motors to do well. That’s the thing that’s sort of heartbreaking and troubling. Everybody wants General Motors to do well. We all want America to succeed. We don’t want to America to fail.
Now, we have a story. This is from US News, April of 2009. “Government Will Not Cancel Chevy Volt, but GM Might Delay It — Despite the hype, the Obama administration’s automotive task force has said the Chevy Volt is too expensive to solve General Motors’ problems. In a report explaining its recent decision to give GM 60 days of funding and not more, the task force wrote, ‘While the Chevy Volt holds promise, it will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short-term.’ However, the government apparently will not cancel the Volt Program.” Now, I could say we all want America to succeed, but do we all? Do we all want America to succeed? I think that’s the problem. There are some who don’t want it to succeed as it always has.
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