President Obama basked in the glow of the strongest year for automobile sales since 2006 during a pre-State-of-the-Union speech in Detroit Wednesday, trumpeting his decision to bail out the auto industry.
“It was not popular — even in Michigan. You don’t have to be a genius political analyst to say 10 percent [approval] is not very high,” Obama said at a Ford Motor Co. plant just outside Detroit.
“Betting on you was the right thing to do,” he added. “That bet has paid off for America. Because the American auto industry is back.”
Though the federal government did not bail out Ford, the White House has argued that without the injection of government dollars for its competitors, the industry would have been crippled.
More awkward for the White House: The plant where Obama spoke was temporarily shuttered due to a lack of demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, such as hybrids. The sagging demand for those cars has been driven by the plummeting price of gasoline, with many Americans opting to purchase sport utility vehicles and trucks.
Obama, however, preferred to focus on the overall resurgence of the auto industry Wednesday.
“Since 2010, we, America, have put more people back to work than Europe, Japan and every other advanced economy combined,” he said, framing the auto comeback as central to those efforts.
“A lot of times the media doesn’t like reporting on good news,” Obama added, ribbing the White House press corps.
And Obama tried to score some points with the Detroit crowd by expressing sympathy for the hometown Lions’ controversial loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the National Football League playoffs on Sunday.
“I would have been pretty irritated,” Obama said of the decision not to call pass interference on the Cowboys at a pivotal point in the fourth quarter. “Were you irritated?”
