I can't stand American cars. My first car back in my twenties was a Ford Fairmont station wagon and it drove me into the welcoming arms of Honda. I've since gotten an affinity for the Europeans' vehicles, but that Honda Fit looks like a lot of car for $15K. I drive American cars all the time when I rent cars on the road and I've never sat in one I'd pay money for over a Honda, VW, or Volvo.

I won't argue the point that American automakers have improved since my 1979 Fairmont, but I would argue that they have sent their improved products straight to their European subsidiaries, where Opels (GM) and Fords can be found in many fuel-efficient, sharp-driving, reasonably sized forms. (Actually, those cars are designed and built in Europe, where the executives are told their cars would never sell in the USA.)

But if you look at the tired dreck coming out of Ford, the hideous macho machines Chrysler and GM are designing (that Chevy Volt looks like something from a sci-fi movie about cars that eat people), it's hard to figure out how they decide what we want as their market share declines and declines and declines. These are bad businesses from top to bottom.

But as Mike Barnicle ventured on MSNBC this morning, to set up the American worker as the fall guy for this piss-poor management would be wildly ironic after the Congress and Treasury decided that the smirking traders and overpaid investment bankers of Wall Street deserved our tax dollars. I mean, what exactly is the point we're making?

As the days pass and the Wall Street bailout looks increasingly idiosyncratic and ineffectual, it's hard to figure out if there's an intellectually coherent strategy behind our government's actions. And if the net effect of failing to provide some meaningful form of aid to Detroit is the sending ever more of our industrial base and high-paying jobs overseas, are we not cutting off our nose to spite Rick Wagoner and Bob Nardelli?