The Times saith...

This just goes to show you how the liberal media skew things to represent their twisted view of the world. I am not going to make grand sweeping political statements here, but the New York Times has not had any problem so far supporting very hard left leaning liberals over "middle of the road" libs and conservatives or hard right leaner’s. The paper is as left as left can get. Anyway, a few weeks ago the NYT’s ran an op-ed about the plight of General Motors and what the company is doing about gas prices.

There is a slight problem with many of the things the author Thomas L. Friedman says in his article. Now although I will fight to the death his right to hold an opinion, TACT is something that I feel many free people must remember to hold. Friedman clams that General Motors is not trying hard enough to make fuel efficient vehicles, especially Sports Utility Vehicles. The problem is not the over looking of facts such as GM's involvement in producing the first full sized hybrid work trucks or the first hybrid city buses. No, the problem is in the choice of words. Remember TACT goes a long way when pointing out the flaws in others.

Friedman makes a good point in that large SUV's do in fact consume a lot of gas by today’s standards. However when Friedman says GM is "like a crack dealer" you might make a few hundred-thousand (if not a few million) people upset. But this clam that GM is a crack dealer is made only to point out that in areas where gas is well over $3.00 a gallon (see a nation wide map for gas averages) the General has introduced "gas incentives".

All it is a Free first 100 miles (or something like that) on us gas card. This is more of a marketing tool than anything else. Only if the "free" gas lasts for year and you drive like Mario Andrei will you realize any true savings than if you bought an X-Tara or Tundra, or maybe your upscale tastes require the X5, which takes only high test.

The out cry from the rest of us INSIDE the automotive business but not within the realm of General Motors is one of "pot and kettle". Friedman points out that Asian manufactures do not have this problem of making gas drinking SUV's so they do not have to offer "free money" to get people to buy the car/truck/suv. However if one actually does his or her research, you will find that in America, EVERY manufacture makes at least one full sized pickup truck and at least one full sized truck based SUV. So the next time Friedman goes looking for a Puris, I suggest he also look at the Tundra sitting next to it in the showroom.

Now, as far as attacking a manufacture on his own turf, some very astute bloggers on AutoBlog link to a Wikipadia entry of something called a Toyota Century. This is a full sized luxobarge and I am sure gets poor fuel efficiency. The current second generation Toyota Century employees a V12 engine block and I can only guess how many MPG you can really go... Then again, if you have the 150,000 dollars to buy this landyacht, who cares right?

Again, I feel as though any one can say what they will about a powerful being. Be he the President, or a CEO, or a company as a whole; this country was founded on the belief of free speech and that of a free press. However choose your words carefully. I do not want to attack the character of Thomas Friedman, but I will say he knows NOTHING of the automotive world and as such needs to do more research than others who may be "in the know"