AP Emphasizes 'Hardline' Republicans Oppose Auto Bailout

Republican Senators Richard Shelby and Jon Kyl hit the studios of the Sunday morning TV programs and opposed a government bailout for the auto industry. Stephen Ohlemacher of the Associated Press described that conservative instinct as "hardline" in his story's very first word:  

Hardline opponents of an auto industry bailout branded the industry a "dinosaur" whose "day of reckoning" is near, while Democrats pledged Sunday to do their best to get Detroit a slice of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue in this week's lame-duck session of Congress.

Democrats earn no "hardline" label for obediently trying to help the United Auto Workers union, but conservatives are hardliners. Senator Kyl hardly earned the label "hardliner" with his generosity to another question on Fox News Sunday. As the AP also reported in another dispatch:

The Senate's second-ranking Republican says it wouldn't be a bad idea if President-elect Barack Obama named Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

"It seems to me she's got the experience. She's got the temperament for it. I think she would be well received around the world," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "So my own initial reaction is it would be a very good selection."