Bush Rescues the Automakers? Strange.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

OMG! President Bush has actually done something good. Finally! You know what they say about stopped clocks. Early today the Bush administration agreed to bail out the two worst-off of the Big Three automakers:

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC will get $13.4 billion in initial government loans to keep operating in exchange for a restructuring under a rescue plan announced by President George W. Bush.

A bankruptcy is unlikely to work for the automakers at this time and can't be allowed, Bush said at the White House.

"These are not ordinary circumstances," Bush said at the White House. "In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action."

Stranger things have happened. But rarely.

• Read more by Bonnie Erbe.
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• Read more about car manufacturers.
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