Toyota Hearings Represent ‘Monumental Opportunity’ for Congress

In an effort to distract Americans from Congress’ own gross mismanagement, members of the House Oversight and Investigations Committee grilled Toyota USA president Jim Lentz for three hours on the recent massive product recalls for sudden acceleration and braking problems.

“We’re not sure if Toyota did anything wrong or not. We’re just hoping some folks will get mad at Toyota instead of us. This is a monumental opportunity for distraction,” said Representative Bart Stupak (UAW, Michigan) the committee chairman.

“And by the way, this is a good way to try to pay back some of our union thug backers as well,” Stupak said, referring to the lower levels of unionization within Toyota as compared to domestic auto makers.

Lentz faced stiff opposition from the moment he began his opening remarks. He was interrupted while reading his opening statement by Stupak.

“I think you’ve accelerated too quickly into your remarks. Your mouth must be defective,” Stupak said, then turned to an aide and asked if he thought the remark would get air time on CNN.

After three more interruptions, Lentz finally lost it.

“We followed the rules and regulations that the federal government gave us to follow. You guys are so stupid you can’t tie your own shoes. I have to run my organization within a budget. You guys don’t even know what that word means. If someone is liable in all this, it ought to be you morons who set up excessive regulations that don’t protect anybody,” Lentz said.

Stupak responded angrily that, “members of Congress should not have to know how to tie shoes. Our work is too important to be distracted by menial things.”

Meanwhile, the White House expressed its hope that the distraction would assist them in their second attempt to commit healthcare reform and battery.

“Make no mistake. While Mr. Toyoda is in front of that committee tomorrow we will proceed with the reconciliation option behind closed doors,” President Obama read from a teleprompter.

“Hey, who wrote this thing? I thought we decided to say that the whole recall thing was Bush’s fault,” Obama said.

Critics of the grilling Lentz received on Capitol Hill echoed his point that regulations set forth by the Department of Transportation were strictly followed by Toyota yet did not prevent the defects from making it into cars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was called on to briefly testify before the committee as well.

“Hey Ray. We kind of miss you back here on the Hill. Hope the cabinet gig is still going well. We’ll talk it over at tee time tomorrow, OK?” Stupak said.

LaHood read a short statement before fielding the one question from Stupak.

“I would like to say that while my agency’s regulations were apparently worthless in this case, that Americans should not lose faith in their government. And this does not in any way mean that we should be skeptical of government regulations that supposedly protect us,” said LaHood.