The middle child of the Big Three, Ford Motor Corporation's CEO Bill Ford, struck back on Thursday, as the Detroit News notes:
The Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate drew the ire of automakers after a speech to the Detroit Economic Club in March where he said: "Here in Detroit, three giants of American industry are hemorrhaging jobs and profits as foreign competitors answer the rising global demand for fuel-efficient cars."
Ford said Thursday he was "very disappointed" in the criticism Obama dished out to Detroit. He also criticized efforts in Congress to radically increase fuel economy.
"I would love to invite him to our Chicago assembly plant in his state and see where we make a vehicle that's more efficient than the one he's currently driving," Ford said to applause at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.
Ford is in the early stages of building the new Taurus sedan and Taurus X wagon at the Chicago plant, both of which are more fuel efficient than the V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C that Obama used to drive. On Friday, Obama's office said he sold that vehicle a few weeks ago, and he has never visited Ford's Chicago assembly plant. The family has a Ford Escape hybrid, his office said.
That assembly plant is on Chicago's Far South Side; it's just a few blocks from the Altgeld Gardens housing projects the senator visited often during his stint as a community organizer in the 1980s--so it's been on his radar for years.
He can still drop by---it's just 10 miles from his Kenwood mansion.
And does anyone besides me feel that's it odd--and maybe even wrong--that a possible future president is picking fights with some of our largest corporations? First Wal-Mart, now the Big Three automakers.
Who is next?
Related posts:
The Obamas: The Audacity of Hypocrisy
Obama: Do as I say, not as I do
Obama and Wal-Mart
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