After reading Tom Friedman's Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes "A Quick Fix for the Gas Addicts", I was stunned...silent.  I wanted badly to comment on his derogatory, hyped piece on GM's 2-state Fuel program, but couldn't summon anything other than 4-letter words.  I prayed that someone at GM would take issue and respond, and thankfully, Steve Harris, the PR mastermind behind one of Chrysler's many comebacks, was up to the task, with "Hyperbole and Defamation in the New York Times" http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2006/06/hyperbole_and_d.html

I remember back when NBC put explosives in the gas tanks of GM pickups to try to make the company's products look bad.  Thankfully, GM fought back then...and they are fighting back again.  I just wish our American media would stop forcing our companies, our American companies, to expend critical time and energy to repond to their shenanigans.

What is it with this country?  What is our passion with beating up on the big guy -- especially when they are one of us?  We broke apart AT&T.  We beat up on Microsoft.  We LOVE to beat on GM, just slightly more than we love to beat on Ford  (I guess Chrysler was smart to sell themselves to become a German company).  This is simply nothing more than tabloid journalism gussied up as 'business reporting'.  I thought real journalists were supposed to report the FACTS!!! 

Even autoblog.com is being factual about this:  going so far as to say, "It appears to us that GM is putting the most effort into making its full-size trucks and SUVs as efficient as possible without sacrificing their purpose. For all the GM bashing we're accused of here on Autoblog, we stand with Bob on this one. "  http://www.autoblog.com/2006/06/02/gm-s-lutz-takes-friedman-from-new-york-times-to-task/

We love imports.  What is our obsession with helping them while we beat ourselves to death?  Does anybody know (or care) that Toyota just recalled almost 1 million vehicles, including 2/3 of their darling little Priuses??? When the EPA reported that all imports had been overstating horsepower and fuel economy, did it even hit the national press????  Can somebody tell me what would have been on page 1 of every major everything if GM would have been the center of either of those stories???

Why are we beating up on our own?  Are we sadists?  Are we jealous?  True GM has made some mistakes -- is it fair to continue to punish them for their sins of the 1970s and 1980s?   True, GM is trying to turn itself around (even Harris admitted that).  Why don't we give them a chance, or at least, the benefit of the doubt???