Big Three can't play defense anymore
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...81/1148/AUTO01

Sen. Barack Obama's finger-wagging lecture this week to Detroit's
automakers shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's paying attention.

It's the future if maligned Motown doesn't start playing aggressive
offense. Doesn't matter that an Illinois Democrat from the industrial
Midwest, a man who would be president, shows scant understanding of the
technology, market realities and human limitations of his remedies --
and then jumps on the campaign plane.

It's the formula: Whack Detroit, ignore details and draw praise from
most any corner outside of, say, three Great Lakes cities, meaning Obama
understands very well the times in which he's running for the nomination.

Judging by the climatic grandstanding so common now in Washington, he's
not alone. Be it Republican or Democrat, be it a vote in Congress or a
position on the campaign trail, the times are ripe for policies
purported to slow climate change and improve national energy security.

Play offense, not defense

And if they undermine companies struggling to survive? That's our problem.

The path of least resistance runs right through Detroit's weakened
automakers and over the United Auto Workers, presumed to back Democrats
no matter how inimical their proposed policies may be to the union's future.

Doesn't matter that the union and its members are stalwarts of the
Democrats. Doesn't matter that Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, remains
the industry's protector on Capitol Hill. Doesn't matter how communities
could be impacted, most of them Midwest backwaters to party elites.

None of it much matters because big, bad Detroit isn't so big or bad
anymore. General Motors Co., Ford Motor Corp., Chrysler Group and even
Toyota Motor Corp. cannot play defense in Washington on fuel economy,
climate change and energy security. It won't work.

Viewed from the crumbling ruins of industrial America, Washington has
reached an inflection point: There will be political movement on climate
change and fuel economy, as the Senate Commerce Committee votes Tuesday
on tougher federal fuel economy rules showed.

Step on the gas

Change will come quickly, too, even if some of it makes little sense.
Take Obama's suggestion to pick up 10 percent of Detroit's crushing
retiree health care costs, provided that fully half of the annual
federal spending goes into improving fuel efficiency.

For DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, which spends $1.56 billion on
retiree health care, the federal help would amount to $78 million a year
or $29 per vehicle, according to company calculations. Yippee.

Put aside the political risk of using taxpayer money to bail out GM,
Ford and Chrysler, never a popular play in the "Detroit-is-for-losers"
zeitgeist. The dough is piddling, proving how poorly politicians
understand the enormity of the burden Detroit is shouldering.

It's past time for Detroit to step on the gas in Washington. Tired of
Toyota getting all the props for being so fuel-efficient when its V-8
trucks are anything but? Then help drive the debate on fuel-efficiency,
or it will drive you.

Worried that Democrats in Congress will stall a comprehensive
environmental package to wait for a Democrat in the White House? Push
for a broad deal now, as some of Detroit's automakers are doing, while
Dingell is active, Detroit's balance sheets are iffy and you've got a
decent technology story to tell.

Convinced that a 4 percent annual improvement in fuel economy starting
in 2011 cannot be achieved? Start lining up your bankruptcy counsel;
write the surrender-and-blame speeches; and remind the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corp. (and their friends in Congress) just how massive your
pension obligations are -- and how heavily they'd weigh on American
taxpayers.

Doesn't need to end that way, or Obama's way. But doing nothing and
hoping is not an option.