DETROIT NEWS: Members of Congress, Not Auto Execs, Deserve Grilling:

Representatives and senators should have been answering questions from the automakers about why they approved government policies that have played the biggest role in driving American carmakers toward extinction. . . . Why did members of Congress — such as House Banking Chairman Barney Frank, Senate Banking Chairman Christoper Dodd and others — raise fuel economy standards, adding more than $85 billion in costs as the industry was restructuring itself?

If the reason was forcing automakers to deal with higher gasoline prices, perhaps the politicians could explain why they have made fuel more scarce by blocking domestic drilling for oil and preventing new refineries from being built during the past three decades.

Perhaps Detroit could be running ads asking those questions, if they weren’t having to grovel for goverment cash. Rather than grovel, I’d be thinking about filing Chapter 11, while blaming members of Congress by name. But that’s probably why I’m not an auto industry CEO, and it’s probably a good thing . . . .