Thomas skews story by ignoring key point

In response to Cal Thomas' alarmist article, "See the USA in your government-built Chevrolet", he refers to the effective "nationalization" of GM and Chrysler. While Cal is not entirely incorrect in the use of nationalization, he is certainly lacking in journalistic integrity.

The U.S. government has approximately an 8 percent stake in Chrysler. By leaving out this key point, Cal is implying that the government has basically taken over the entire ownership of the company, and now Chrysler is a government automaker. In fact, the U.S. government is a minority shareholder in the new Chrysler. The so-called (by Cal) wasted billions from the failed bailout will give Fiat majority control if and when they pay back the bailout funds (much the way many banks have already repaid their Bush Administration TARP funds).

If Cal truly believes the new Chrysler-Fiat alliance is going to result in the U.S. version of the Skoda or the Trabant, I urge him to save a copy of his article, post it on a wall, and years from now, reread it to see how ridiculous his disingenuous, alarmist, skewed-reality babble sounds. The fringe of extreme right-wing lunacy demonstrated in recent years in this nation is truly mind-boggling to those of us with post-kindergarten educations. Instead of realizing this has all happened in the past (bank bailouts, government stimulus, auto industry bailouts and reorganization), with success, they scream "socialism" at every turn, and write articles deliberately skewing reality to strike fear into the easily-frightened segment of the populace who are least likely to seek out the truth, and most likely to believe ridiculous sound bytes (and print bytes).

Jeff Schade

Streamwood