Obama and Ford Motor Company: Censorship or petty politics?

It would seem that the Ford Motor Company CEO, Alan Mulally received a surprise phone call from the White House “bullying” him (Mulally’s words) into pulling a television advertisement that made the Obama administration look bad.  The commercial is above (for now) for those of you who have not seen it.  Essentially the customer is given a surprise press conference where reporters ask him why he purchased a Ford.  His honest and unrehearsed response was that he wanted to buy an American vehicle from an American manufacturer that did not take government bailout money, who accepted the risk of doing business and during hard times, stepped up to the plate and got it done.  I’m paraphrasing of course but this man is nowhere nearly alone in his sentiment. 

I only wish I could say I had the same level of conviction.  Yes I am positively disgusted with General Motors for the way the union and government strong armed bond and stock holders out of their investment, essentially “stealing” money while reneging on debts.  I’m also disgusted by the transfer ownership of the company to the very same union that caused it so many financial woes in the first place.  GM also of course begged a federal, tax payer backed loan and eventual bailout of billions from the government.  Of course GM later advertised that they paid their government loan money back but they failed to mention the bailout money they used to do it…in short they kept the cash they just changed the label of the bucket it was sitting in.  As for the investors that got bilked, if you think only fat cat Wall Street types lost money in that deal, you might want to take a really close look at your 401K managed investment portfolio prior to the GM bankruptcy, you might be in for a nasty surprise. 

But let’s step back and forget about taxpayer money or the investors and bond holders who were bilked. Forget about the bailout money too, after all Harley Davidson took bailout money and I own two of them.  It’s not the loan that is worrying; it’s not even the bailout that is the thing that keeps me up at night.  A little bit of it might be the way the investors got jacked over…but I’m not even overly concerned about that at the moment.  The concerning thing is the government stepped in, directly from the White House and essentially threatened Ford Motor Company in order to cow them into silence.  This is petty at best, immature and beneath the type of conduct that we should see coming from the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth.  This could also be painted in a darker, more sinister light for those so inclined as this is the type of stuff I heard horror stories about as a kid growing up in Regan’s America during the 1980’s.  You remember?  The good old days where we were warned about Communism, the evils of censorship from the government, the abandonment of individual liberties for collectivist thinking and the thing that always stuck out in my mind were the toilet paper and gasoline shortages that the USSR experienced, but I digress.

This was a grievous error on the part of the White House and I think ultimately it shows just how petty and low this administration is willing to go.  I think this will hurt Obama politically for sure but my biggest hope is that this does not set a precedent indicative of future behavior.  It’s beneath the office. 

Now before anyone gets on my comments section below and starts the knee jerk Bush bashing that seems to occur anytime anyone criticizes this president (which to this day I do not understand) please keep in mind that I understand the Bush administration had its warts too, though I somehow have a hard time picturing direct calls from the White House demanding unflattering advertisements be pulled from the air “or else” so try to keep on topic if you want to leave a comment.  We’re talking about Obama, or the Ford Motor Company, GM or anything relevant within the last 2 or 3 years…and that isn’t Bush so please keep that in mind if you wish to disagree with my post above.   

Sources

Source 1: http://detnews.com/article/20110927/...ad-on-bailouts

Source 2: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannit...big-businesses