A liberal against the bailout?

There's an interesting viewpoint on MakeTheNextLeft. The liberal running the blog is arguing against an auto bailout because having a Car Czar/oversight board sitting across the table from the UAW puts them in an adversarial position. While I happen to think that the roles will be more as partners than adversaries, there is an interesting subtext to the article.

Yes, this article addresses the situation from the viewpoint that the car companies are lobbying for free trade so they can produce overseas for cheaper. [No mention of the fact that they want to sell outside of the US too, where according to my math, 95.5% of the world's population live] And the car companies have supposedly lobbied for watered down fuel efficiency standards that are unfair to foreign automakers and favor American automakers Uh, aren't the CAFE standards the same for every company? According to my research in Wiki, and About.com they are. About.com says this;

Definition: Corporate Average Fuel Economy This is the term used for the sales weighted average fuel economy (in MPG) for a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars and light trucks (less than 8500 GVWR) sold in the United States for any given model year. These standards are regulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental
Protection Agency.

I don't see any differentiation that says Honda must hit a number 50% better than Ford. Did I miss something? Seriously.

In any case here's where there's an interesting subtext. Does this qualify as one of those useful idiots that could be used to make the case for us to other liberals? And if so, why not leverage it? Get your liberal friends to look at the blog article. Let them convince themselves a bailout is bad news for the Democrats.

Given they achieve a critical mass, it's a conservative win-win-win.

1. It helps win the no bailout battle. It's a ideological victory that failure doesn't get rewarded.
2. Given the delay/failure, GM and Chrysler will be forced to file for Chapter 11. They will have to restructure and the UAW will have to return to reality.
2. Democrats will suffer the political fallout of no bailout happening. There will be fractures in the Democratic party. Where do UAW votes go? They can stay home, vote GOP or in some cases remain loyal. In any case there's a serious fracture, with possible other union spillover effects.

I don't see how we lose if it pans out. Even if this guy successfully argues for requiring that lobbying be removed as an auto industry tool as part of the bailout conditions, then that's a modest achievement for us. Because if even this guy gets this:

All these things may be true, but I see no reason to believe that high level
government leaders are going to be any more likely to be able to solve the
problems the car companies have than the car companies themselves.
Frankly, even without the government oversight board, the government has been
responsible for most of the car company problems anyway.

There's still hope for clarity to descend upon the myriad minions of the left. Someday.