Indeed, Toyota claims losses for the first time in 70 years—though how Toyota’s management was able to keep sales up in 1945, when Gen. Curtis LeMay’s B-29s were conducting their nightly visits, escapes me.
Bush may believe he has sinned against free-market principles, but he is following the path of his great free-market predecessor. Ronald Reagan, too, was not prepared to see Japan take down the U.S. auto industry, or steel industry, or computer chip industry, or Harley-Davidson.
Believing Japan was dumping to destroy U.S. companies, Reagan put patriotism before ideology and imposed quotas on Japanese imports. He, too, was castigated by the same commentariat that is berating Bush.
Vice President Cheney, too, has endorsed the bailout of Detroit. Of the senators who voted to pull the plug on General Motors, Cheney is said to have remarked, “It’s Herbert Hoover time” up there in the GOP caucus.
[….]
Like Prohibition in Hoover’s phrase, globalism is “an experiment, noble in purpose, that has failed.”
Tag: Politics
Iraq Declares Christmas an Official Holiday for First Year
Some good news from Iraq.
Via FOXNews.com:
Iraq’s Christians, a small minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.
But security worries overshadowed the day for many, particularly in the north where thousands of Christians have fled to escape religious attacks.
Overall security in Iraq has improved markedly in the past year, but a fatal car bombing in Baghdad on Christmas morning was a gruesome reminder that serious problems remain.
The bombing outside a restaurant frequented by police killed four people and wounded 25 others in the Shiite neighborhood of Shula, said a police officer speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to news media.
Also Thursday, an oil official said attackers blew up a pipeline in the city of Kirkuk. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attack occurred Wednesday and pumping was expected to resume within three days.
In his homily on Thursday, Chaldean Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly praised the establishment of Christmas as an official holiday as a step toward easing tensions.
“I thank it too for making this day an official holiday where we pray to God to make us trust each other as brothers,” he said at the Christmas Mass before several dozen worshippers in the small chapel of a Baghdad monastery.
A senior Shiite cleric, Ammar al-Hakim attended the event, flanked by bodyguards, in a gesture of cooperation with Christians.
“I thank the visitors here and ask them to share happiness and love with their brothers on Christmas. By this they will build a glorious Iraq,” the cardinal said.
Unlike some liberals, who only want to look on the bad side of everything, (No wonder Sean threw you off of his show, idiot.) I think that this is proof that the surge is working. There is no doubt, that there is much work to do in Iraq. But this is a sign that there is some progress in Iraq.
What pisses me off, about the Liberals is this; they refused to admit that we won the overall war on terror in Iraq. Granted, we went there on bad information, I do admit that, as do many Conservatives; but the Liberals continue to repeat that dead fucking tired line of, “We cannot win, we have to leave and let these people fight their own battles.” Further more, they are the most irresponsible people ever. If we just pack up and leave, without fixing what we broke, without making DAMN sure that the Iraqi’s can defend themselves from attack from another Nation, we would be responsible for the worst case of genocide ever.
The Liberals refuse to see that Muqtada al-Sadr is all but irrelevant and hiding in Iran. The insurgency over, other than the spurious car bomb, things are back to normal. It sad that the Communist Liberals won’t give our Military the credit it deserves for accomplishing that enormous feat.
I just wonder how long it will be, before the Magic One will just remove all of our troops from Afghanistan and say, “Oh well, we deserved 9/11 anyhow, so, we’re not going to fight no more!” It would not surprise me at all.
The Moderate Voice, Scared Monkeys, TigerHawk, Gateway Pundit, and Don Surber
Wish I could get this lucky!
Not to make light of this, but man, it must be nice!
A family facing foreclosure is anything but a unique story in these troubled economic times.
But this is a happier story of one family whose financial ruin was averted by the actions of a friend, the compassion of strangers, the networking power of the Internet and the holiday spirit of giving.
“This is our Christmas story,” said Ebony Sampson. “It’s going to be told for generations and generations to come.”
Sampson, who lives in Aberdeen, Maryland, with her husband, Daniel, and their two young children, has overcome more hardship than one person should ever have to face. When she was in the 10th grade, she lost her entire family in a horrific car accident. Raised by a grandmother in New York, Ebony eventually used some life-insurance money from her parents’ death to buy the home in Aberdeen, near where she grew up.
But in June, Daniel got sick. After several tests, his doctors concluded that he was suffering from salmonella after eating a tainted tomato. As a new employee of Bank of America, he had not accrued enough paid time off to keep his job as a credit-card account manager.
Suddenly, the sole breadwinner in the Sampson household was out of work. Though the Sampsons received unemployment checks from the government, the money wasn’t enough to make ends meet.
First came the shut-off notices from the electric company. Then one of their cars broke down. One morning, Daniel woke up and looked out his bedroom window and saw his truck was missing. It had been repossessed.
With no job, no car and no income, the Sampsons got another surprise: Ebony Sampson learned she was eight weeks pregnant.
The Sampsons returned home from church, where they are practicing ministers, on a Sunday in November to find a stranger knocking on their front door. He wanted to put a bid in on their house. Ebony told him their home was not for sale. The next day, the Sampsons were notified that they were facing foreclosure unless they could come up with $10,000 in the next two weeks to bring their mortgage up to date.
“Once we received that letter, it was like, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ ” Daniel Sampson said. “I don’t think anyone in their right mind would receive a foreclosure notice and not be rattled by it.”
Somehow, the couple maintained their sense of humor. Ebony Sampson called one of her oldest friends, Jaki Grier, and jokingly asked her if she had $10,000. Jaki told her, “Sure, just let me open up my invisible purse!”
But then Grier got an idea.
A self-described geek, Grier started blogging years ago. Since then, she’s contributed to a magazine’s Web site and regularly posts thoughts and life happenings on her LiveJournal page. So, she published Ebony and Daniel’s story, along with a link where people could make a donation.
Pretty bad when you gotta use a Blog and the internet as a tin cup. They were ministers, why didn’t the Church take up a collection for them?
Some Church. 🙄
Of course, when a white man like me says anything about it. I’m a raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccciiiiiist!
Update: For those who think I am being cruel or just being an asshole. Let me tell you something, ok? I used to be in over my head in debt. Finally, I filed for backruptcy. I filed for chapter 7, I lost it all, and started over. I had a Paypal account myself, did I get on the internet and cry, “Please send me money!”? No, I didn’t; I would never ask anyone else to help “Bail me out” of a sitution I put myself into. The facts are, they could have filed for backruptcy, even reaffairmed some of thier debts, like the house and could have been able to keep it. But no, they took the beggers route. It just steams me when I see people do that, I never did, I delt with my own problems and did what I could, I could have taken the route these people did, but I did the right thing and, as they say in the ghetto, “Delt with my own.”
Funny Video: Sponsor an Executive
This was sent to me by the smartest Democrat I know………………My Mom. 😀
Quote of the Day
Neoconservatism, he announced, was a victim of its success. It no longer represented anything unique because the GOP had so thoroughly assimilated its doctrines. In 2004, a variety of commentators scrambled to pronounce a fresh obituary for neoconservatism. The disastrous course of the Iraq War, Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím said, showed that the neoconservative dream had expired in the sands of Araby.
RedState Update:Blagojevich Has Dirt On Obama?
Jackie and Dunlap talk to the corruptest, bribe-takin’est governor in all of America– Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Find out how much it’ll cost to find out Obama’s involvement!
(CONTENT WARNING NSFW!)
Exit Comment: This video solves the riddle of how many times you can put the f-bomb in a video. WOW! 😮
Red State Update: Gays Still Hate Obama, Rick Warren
Jackie and Dunlap talk about hippie churches, gay rights, and Home Improvement.
Santa Needs a Bailout too?
It seems so.
(Via Reason Hit and Run)
The Blog Traffic Whoring “Obama Shirtless” Posting
Because hits are down and because I just need the damn traffic…… Here are the pics of Obama Shirtless.
There you go… Enjoy!
Others on this: Neptunus Lex, TIME.com, Hot Air, CNN, The Jed Report, Real Clear Politics, The Note and Associated Press
From the “You Must be kidding!” Dept.: Enviro Nuts in Seattle, Washington Refuse to Salt roads!
This is just absolutely flippin’ crazy!
Via Seattle, Washington’s Times:
To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
“We’re trying to create a hard-packed surface,” said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. “It doesn’t look like anything you’d find in Chicago or New York.”
The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”
By ruling out salt and some of the chemicals routinely used by snowbound cities, Seattle has embraced a less-effective strategy for clearing roads, namely sand sprinkled on top of snowpack along major arterials, and a chemical de-icer that is effective when temperatures are below 32 degrees.
Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn’t scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.
That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can’t: melt it.
The city’s patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.
Between Thursday and Monday, the city spread about 6,000 tons of sand on 1,531 miles of streets it considers major arterials.
The tonnage, sprinkled atop the packed snow, amounts to 1.4 pounds of sand per linear foot of roadway, an amount one expert said might be too little to provide effective traction.
“Hmmm. Six thousand tons of sand for that length of road doesn’t seem like it’s enough,” said Diane Spector, a water-resources planner for Wenck Associates, which evaluated snow and ice clearance for nine cities in the Midwest.
Spector and snow-control experts in four cities said sand is typically mixed with salt and used for trouble spots.
“The occasional application of salt is probably not going to have a lasting effect” on the environment, Spector said. But she cautioned it’s highly dependent on where it’s used, how often and how much is applied.
Seattle’s stand against using salt is not shared by the state Department of Transportation, which has battled the latest storms in Western Washington with de-icer, 5,800 tons of salt and 11,500 cubic yards of salt and sand mix, said spokesman Travis Phelps.
Many cities are moving away from sand because it clogs the sewers, runs into waterways, creates air pollution and costs more to clean up.
Its main attraction is that it typically costs less than one-fifth the price of salt, according to Spector.
“We never use sand,” said Ann Williams, spokeswoman for Denver’s Department of Public Works. “Sand causes dust, and there’s also water-quality issues where it goes into streets and into our rivers.”
Instead, it sprays an “anti-icing” agent on dry roads before the snow falls and then a combination of chemicals to melt the ice.
Cheryl Kuck, spokeswoman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, said her city prepared the streets last week with the “anti-icing” spray. Once the snow started, Portland used chemical de-icers, followed by plowing with 55 plows and treating trouble spots with sand and gravel.
Although the city had plowed 29 of its 36 major routes, “nothing is clear,” Kuck said late Monday afternoon. “This is a difficult and challenging situation that’s going to take us a long time to recover from.”
Wiggins, of Seattle’s transportation department, said the city’s 27 trucks had plowed and sanded 100 percent of Seattle’s main roads, and were going back for second and third passes.
“It’s tough going. I won’t argue with you on that,” he said. But here in Seattle, “we’re sensitive about everything we do that impacts the environment.”
Oh My freakin’ goodness! These liberal morons are absolutely out of their flippin’ minds! I mean, not plowing or salting the fucking streets, because they’re afraid of polluting the water? Seriously?!?!
Moonbats! You gotta laugh, otherwise, You’d be scared to death.
These are Obambi’s people man! WOW! 😮
Update: Hell, even Malkin Agrees with me! 😀
Others: Townhall.com, Betsy’s Page and Commentary
The Reading Room: The Proper Role of Government by Ezra Taft Benson
I was given this link via twitter a couple days ago, I bookmarked it.
I admit, that I didn’t read the entire thing, But I read enough of it, to see that it is something that everyone, of all political stripes should, in fact, read.
Go here to read, “The Proper Role of Government by Ezra Taft Benson”
Cartoons of the Day
More at www.diversitylane.com
Or blog at www.diversitylane.wordpress.com
—-
More at Baloo’s Cartoon Blog
Already?: The Party’s over for Obama and the far left
Seriously. That was the first thing out of my mouth.
Already?
In other parts of the country one would say, “That Quick?”
Seems that way, because Richard Cohen has basically said of Obama, that the Party; with him and his lesbian sister, was over.
Quotable Quotes:
Not that he was planning to attend, but Barack Obama should know that my sister’s inauguration night party — the one for which she was preparing Obama Punch — has been canceled. The notice went out over the weekend, by e-mail and word of mouth, that Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation had simply ruined the party. Warren is anti-gay, and my sister, not to put too fine a point on it, is not. She’s gay.
She is — or was — a committed Obama supporter. On the weekend before the presidential election, my sister and my mother drove from the Boston area, where they both live, to Obama’s New Hampshire headquarters in Manchester. There my mother made 76 phone calls for Obama, which is not bad for someone who is 96, and gives you an idea of the level of commitment to Obama in certain precincts of my family.
I should say right off that my mother feels less strongly about Warren than my sister does. But I should add immediately that my sister feels very strongly, indeed. She’s been in a relationship with another woman, the quite wonderful Nancy, for 19 years, and she resents the fact that Warren has likened same-sex marriage to incest, pederasty and polygamy.
Let me just say right here. What you are seeing, is a major let down by the far left. Many on the far left saw Barack Obama is some sort of Liberal Messiah that would make the world all better again, if he were elected. It had to do with much of his election stump speech, which was filled with bombast and platitudes. In reality, Barack Obama is nothing more than just another Chicago liberal politician who will say and do almost anything to get elected to the office in which he is running for.
Of Obama’s Preacher Problems, Cohen Adds:
The conventional thing to say is that Obama has a preacher problem — first the volcanic Jeremiah Wright and now the transparently anti-gay Warren. But the real problem has nothing to do with ministers and everything to do with Obama’s inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader. Sooner or later, he just might have to stand for something.
This was apparent to me almost a year ago when I reported that Obama’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, had given a major award to Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam. The award was presented in Wright’s name and featured in a cover story in the church’s magazine, Trumpet. When I asked the Obama campaign about this, I was told that Obama himself did not agree with Farrakhan. What a relief!
And what a joke. I never for a moment thought Obama viewed Farrakhan any differently from the way I do. But I also thought that as a U.S. senator, as a presidential candidate or even as a mere citizen, he had an obligation to denounce the award — maybe quit the church. Do something! He did nothing.
Wow! Isn’t that what Republicans and Independent Conservatives were saying, um, for the last 2 years about Obama, but were derided as racists? Man, talking about turning on your own! 😮
I knew this was coming, I just knew it. The Democratic Party elected someone based upon popularity and it is now coming back to haunt them. I said this way back in the primary, when I was still running this blog over on the old site on Blogger, that Obama was being set up as some sort of “Perfect Liberal” and that the Democrats were setting themselves up for a let down.
Somewhere today, John Edwards and the rest of the Democrats are smiling. Because they are seeing what I am seeing and thinking, “That’s what those assholes get for electing him!” Anytime you elected someone based upon popularity or in Bambi’s case, skin color; it almost always comes back to haunt you, and right now it is.
Something tells me, that this is going to be an interesting four years to come. I predict that by the time Obama’s four years are up, he will be the most hated President among the far left, ever.
Others: Commentary, Babalu Blog, Stop The ACLU, Macsmind and Riehl World View
He’s just now figuring this out?!?!?!??!?!?!?
David Schuler writes over at “Outside the Beltway” that the Blogsophere is full of jerks!
Of course, he’s writing about this little situation here.
Um, Dave? Where have you been for the last couple of years man? It’s been this way for a LONG while man.
Just Sayin’! 😀
Ann Coulter names Sarah Palin Conservative of the Year
*snort* That”d be like naming me Neo-Con, Republican or Roman Catholic of the Year.
😆
Bring a good looking twat to the Election and the Republicans wet their pants. If she looked like this Lady:
CNN's Crowley Candy
Nobody would care! But because she’s a MILF, everyone loves her.
When does politics, especially Conservative politics get back to the important issues, instead of what someone looks like?
It’s a question me and a many other Paleo-Cons wanna know.
I mean, Seriously, Conservative of the year, Ann? Seriously?
Hot Air, Political Machine, Hullabaloo, The Reaction, Balloon Juice, Liberal Values, RADAMISTO, PoliBlog, Salon and The Other McCain
(via Memeorandum)
For what it’s worth….
Yes, I know about for Fort Dix Convictions.
I have mixed feelings about it. I’ve read and heard both sides of that argument.
My short and sweet on it is this; if you wanna get your jihad sex fantasies on, don’t do it where other people can hear or see you.
New York Times….Punked!
This is a real rip snorter.
It seems that the New York Times got punked.
Early this morning, we posted a letter that carried the name of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy.
This letter was a fake. It should not have been published.
Doing so violated both our standards and our procedures in publishing signed letters from our readers.
We have already expressed our regrets to Mr. Delanoë’s office and we are now doing the same to you, our readers.
This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.
We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.
We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future.
It appears that someone sent them a fake e-mail, and it got published.
Brilliant! 🙄
Others: Michelle Malkin, Ed Driscoll.com, Gawker, Jules Crittenden, Hot Air, Don Surber, Sister Toldjah, Macsmind, Weekly Standard, Blue Crab Boulevard, Gawker, Pajamas Media, Power Line, Althouse, Patterico’s Pontifications and New York Post (Via Memeorandum)
The Huffington Post says “nastiness for me, but not for thee”
I am reading with mild amusement of how the Huffington Post is decrying the isolated racist comments being left over on a site called “Team Sarah“.
Um…. Has anyone forgotten about the nastiness on that site towards the right?
Some Examples:
When Ann Coulter’s Dad passed away. (H/T Michelle)
When Jerry Falwell Died that vitriol over at HuffPo was so bad that the site monitors had to close the comments section.
When a missile struck near where Dick Cheney was visiting in Iraq, HuffPo’s comment section when so berserk that the Site Monitors had to close the comments section down.
So, I just do not understand where the HuffPo gets off nailing a site, for doing much of the same stuff they do themselves.
By the way, Arianna, if you happen to read this. Take a fucking english course, you marble-mouthed BITCH! 😡
Sunday Political Short Takes
I am in the process of reading the book
that I got for Christmas. So, I will be presenting all the top stories in short take form today.
Reports say that Obama’s top chief of staff is in trouble, despite reports that he only talked to the Illinois Governor once.
The Bush E-mails may remain a secret a bit longer, meanwhile a Bush-connected I.T. guy dies in a plane crash, and of course the speculation on that little accident is out in force.
In other news, The New York Times spins the housing crisis, and I mean spins it hard! Fails to place blame on Bill Clinton’s pressure on lending companies, to give loans to high risk persons. So typical. 
It seems the show thrower was angry about bullet ridden Koran. He also got beaten pretty badly, and this is a shock?
Vice President Elect Joe Biden to chair task force to help the middle class. Now that is a hoot. An Elitist Limousine liberal is going to help the middle class, this I have to see. 
The Editor of the Moderate Voice bemoans the beginnings of the "so called" Professional Obama Haters. Haters? I’m no hater, I don’t agree with his politics, but I’m not a hater. Sound like ol’ Joe is trying to say that if you disagree with Obambi’s Politics that you’re a racist. Which is, in this writers opinion, first class bullshit. 
(Update: I’m agreeing with Neo-Cons… I must go shower….
)
….and finally, Idiot faux Pastor Ricky Warren likens Gay people to Pizza, all the while playing with his pepperoni. ()
That’s it for today, I’ll be off reading, so, unless a major story hits, I’m off for the rest of the day.
See Ya!
-Pat
Cyber Jihadists are ticked at facebook…
Heh… this is too funny.
Via The Jawa Report:
Well, ya know Facebook started a little counter offensive since al-Qaeda supporting terrorist sympathizers vowed to use Facebook to spread Jihadi propaganda.
What was the reaction? They are getting Fatwas!
Go read the rest, please…
Meanwhile, When I read this posting, I thought of this video:
Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole. Thank you very much. 😛
The REAL Story behind Change.Gov
It seems that Obama got special permisson to get that website.
Michelle Malkin has the full story and total and complete document dump.
Quote of the Day
In recent years, this question of ownership has insinuated itself into my mind, and I can’t dislodge it. If my home (automobile, income) is really mine, why must I pay strangers to continue to live in it, use it, retain it? Is it MINE, or not?
Not only must I pay to keep what is presumably mine, but the strangers who demand the tribute have a greater claim upon “my” property than I do. Over the years, I’ve needed to have several repairs made to a shifting foundation, have had to replace the roof shingles, re-pave the driveway, install a sump pump, etc. If, because of unexpected expenses, I had been unable to pay the property tax bill, would the collector have understood when I told him I’d have to give him a pass this time around? Of course not. His claim upon my money (say, should that be “my” money?) outweighs my own.
But I digress. Back to the “bubble.” We have lived in this house for forty-two years. We started construction in the late summer, or early fall, of 1965, and moved in on January 20, 1966, just one week before my son was born. Now for the epiphany: while I was musing over the tax bill, it suddenly dawned on me that, over the years, we’ve paid the local rulers more than the house cost. Much more, in fact. It’s incredible, when you think about it. The local authorities did nothing to facilitate our purchase of the land, the building of the house, or its subsequent maintenance; that all came out of my pocket. Yet, over the years, they’ve collected more from me than I paid the developer for the land and the building. And, needless to say, it’s not ending here – I’ll be paying them until I die or sell the house.
And then there’s the inflation factor. As the dollar has withered over the years, the “value” of the house has increased to seven or eight times the amount paid for it. I’ve always marveled that a building that gradually deteriorates becomes more valuable as it does so. My income, over my working years, did not increase sufficiently to match the decline of the dollar, especially with Medicare forcing me to work for less with each passing year. But for the true, actual, owners of the house, it didn’t matter; their tax rate was based upon the inflated value of the house, so that as the dollars became more worthless, they collected more of them.
What a sweet scheme! No wonder those windbags in the state house, or city hall, never stop referring to home ownership (sic!) as the fulfillment of the American Dream! For them, it’s a sweet dream indeed; for us, it can be a bad dream, if not a nightmare. For every house built within their jurisdiction, they will, eventually, collect more than the contractor, the developer, the architect, etc., from that house, and without significant expense on their part, or liability for flaws or defects. And should some defiant home “owner” challenge them and refuse to pay, they’ll simply take his house away from him, and sell it to someone who will. To cap the climax, I suspect that when the municipality borrows money, it uses “my” home as collateral.
A housing bubble? Of course. Every building that’s constructed means a perpetual flow of income to the local authorities. It may look to you like a house, but to them it’s a cash cow. And you’re getting milked, no bull!
Another Sad story of Police using excessive force
This is another one of them stories that make my blood boil. 😡
Via The Huston Press’s Blog called HairBalls, we have a story of where 2 undercover Huston cops beat a 12 year old girl, because they thought she was a hooker.
You know, I am not the type person that advocates violence against Police Officers, but in cases like this, the use of deadly force against a police officer, would be, in my opinion, justified.
(Thanks to Lew Rockwell Blog)
President Bush authorizes $17.5 Billion Dollars in low interest loans to Automakers
Better late than ever, I suppose. To listen to some Conservatives talk, the loans are open ended and there’s no accountability. Which is, of course, wrong. 
From The Politico:
President George W. Bush stepped in Friday to keep America’s auto industry afloat, announcing a $17.4 billion bailout for GM and Chrysler, with the terms of the loans requiring that the firms radically restructure and show they can become profitable soon.
"If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy," Bush said at the White House, in remarks carried live by the national broadcast networks. "In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action. The question is how we can best give it a chance to succeed."
Bush said that "bankruptcy now would lead to a disorderly liquidation of American auto companies."
"My economic advisers believe that such a collapse would deal an unacceptably painful blow to hardworking Americans far beyond the auto industry. It would worsen a weak job market and exacerbate the financial crisis," he said. "It could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession."
The money will come from the Wall Street bailout passed by Congress, a reversal for the White House. President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats had long advocated that course, and Bush had resisted it.
Of the total, $13.4 billion will be paid out in December and January, administration officials told reporters in a briefing. The last $4 billion is contingent on release of the second installment of the Wall Street bailout funds by Congress.
As you can see here, there is accountability, there are conditions on the loans, they are not open ended, and if the auto companies do not get their acts together, the loans will be recalled.
Of course, that is not good enough for some Conservatives like Michelle Malkin, who says that someone should sue the Government over the loans to the Auto industry. Yeah, Michelle, like that will really work. The Party that you are a cheerleader for, is already in the minority, has been driven to the wilderness; because of that beady-eyed bastard in the White House, why not just drive a damned stake through the heart of the party? I think Michelle needs to seriously look into going to the hospital, because I believe that "Sickness" that she has, is going to her brain. 
Yeah, I know, defend Malkin one day and whack her on the ass with a wet towel the next, it’s all about Equal Opportunity around this Blog.
Anyhow, some also believe that this will soften Bush’s image a bit, The Moderate Voice’s Joe Gandelman Notes:
It will help add a positive note to the legacy of Bush who, at best, will be considered a highly flawed President and, at worst, rank as one of the worst in American history. The Republicans in the Senate, acting on ideology, regional politics and anti-union sentiment, had scuttled the bailout — giving the GOP an image once again of a party stuck on ideology.
I agree and I disagree; it might soften his image a bit amongst Independents and some moderate Democrats who did not like that guy, but amongst the hard left, I suspect that President Bush will be the most hated President ever.
Personally, I think Bush did what he felt was right, he put his Party politics aside for a change and did what was right, I commend him for it. I just hope that the auto industry uses this money for the proper purposes and gets their damned act together. Our Government has done the right and proper things, now it is time for the Auto Industry to do theirs. Many people are pessimistic about this; I, on the other hand, try to remain positive about this and hope like bloody hell that G.M. does get their act together. For the sake of the retirees, for the sake of all those who have families that work for those companies, for the sake of all the employees of the local and not so local suppliers and their families.