Ed Schultz Likens Big Three CEOs to Haggling Hooker

Remember what Cliff Clavin on the sitcom "Cheers" would ask after making one of his unwittingly revealing assertions -- "Did I say that out loud?"

A variation of the Clavin line came to mind yesterday -- "Did he say that out loud?" -- after top-rated liberal radio host Ed Schultz said this about Big Three CEOs pleading with Congress to help their ailing industry (click here for audio) --

As I said last week repeatedly and I'll say it again, is that, I think that there was just a chess game being played here, a poker game being played here. Those guys get the big bucks, they went up on Capitol Hill, got their ass kicked and they weren't going to say too much 'cause they wanted to know where the Congress was and now the Congress has basically told them, OK, this is what you gotta do ... Last week was nothing but a big negotiation session. You know, they're going to go, they're only going to pull up their dress so far so everybody can see what's up there, not the whole thing.

"Not the whole thing" -- as in, not from the waist up ...?

Schultz, who's been plugging away -- oops, sorry -- in favor of a bailout for Detroit (just as he did for $700 billion in taxpayer lucre shoveled to the financial sector), may have said more than intended in comparing auto execs to prostitutes.

Then again, the analogy could be all too apt. The Big Three CEOs flew to Washington in private jets, engraved cups in hand, only to see their indelicate overtures for cash in exchange for undefined services rebuffed by members of Congress.

Prostitution is not what most economists would consider a business model that can be sustained indefinitely -- much like those at GM, Ford and Chrysler.

And appropriately enough, many of the transactions involving prostitution -- the actual, lamentable thing itself -- occur within the confines of a vehicle.

When those who claim the demise of automaking in America would cost three million jobs, do they include streetwalkers in the tally?