Detroit, the textbook example of failed schools and substandard, full-bore criminal local government, now has become Barack Obama's latest effort to bankrupt America.

QuotePresident Barack Obama is looking to make the rescue of the Detroit car industry a central feature of his re-election campaign, amid signs that public opinion is turning on the once-despised bail-outs of General Motors and Chrysler.

The 2012 election was supposed to be characterised by the power of the conservative Tea Party movement, which lambasts the president as a "socialist" and demands Republicans pledge to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Mitt Romney, the potential Republican challenger at next year's election, bolstered his "no bail-out" credentials in a 2008 opinion article for The New York Times entitled "Let Detroit go bankrupt".

Yet far from hiding from an apparently toxic issue, Mr Obama travels to a Chrysler facility in Toledo on Friday to celebrate the resurgent fortunes of the carmaker, which was saved with government loans and investment from Fiat, the Italian carmaker.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b6c2aae2-8c76-11e0-883f-00144feab49a.html

Links are from the Financial Times original story, but I for one think it is classic Obama tone-deafness at work here. He went to Toledo and met Joe the Plumber while his crew drove around the city Jeep made famous, all driving GM vehicles. And now he goes to the Glass City and tells 'em how he's gonna do so much for a town in direct competition on numerous regional levels.

I can hear the Donks already screaming for a slice of the pie, if the money does start rolling into Day-twah. The school unions are facing extinction if Detroit Public Schools is abandoned (as many folks predict) and charter schools replace them. The CITY unions face upheaval. Half of City Council is facing indictments, or (like Monica Conyers) actively serving time. Now comes Obama, bringing a new circus to town.

This will be the freest-spending waste of money in the history of my state. I only hope a nickel or so of every tax dollar actually gets spent on something useful.