For all its blunders, Detroit's Big 3 is a big part of the American family

I like this commentary from the Detroit Free Press about the real case the Big 3 should be making to save the U.S. auto industry. Forget parsing the numbers about "two-tier" wages and other talking points, says columnist Tom Walsh, and make a straight-to-the-heart appeal to the "American family," of which Detroit has been a prominent member for a century.

Shes my little deuce coupe
You dont know what I got
(my little deuce coupe)
(you dont know what I got)

Sure, Detroit has committed a succession of blunders in product strategy, labor deals and foot dragging on mileage standards. But it's asked for federal help only once -- $1.5 billion in loan guarantees to Chrysler in 1979 which later resulted in a $350 million windfall to the U.S. Treasury. Compare that to the hundreds of millions that have been showered on insurance giant AIG and banks which committed much more costly blunders during the mortgage securitization craze of the last decade.

Does big-hearted America want to kiss off Detroit? I don't think so.