The only real answer Alan "Boeing! Boeing!" Mulally gave was when Matt Lauer asked the question of whether Ford's the underdog with federal help. He claims they support the decision. But then when Matt asked Mulally whether he believed GM could turn into a Vietnam-type situation for President Obama. Alan answered only by saying "We are focused on Ford and we're making the best cars and trucks consumers...will value..." Then something like "Have you seen the new Ford Taurus outside?" Decline to answer and then...pivot back to message. This guy's pretty good with the whole "message" thing, ain't he?Here's the video of Alan "Message" Mulally parrying, pivoting and answering absolutely nothing on the Today Show today.

NBC's Today Show is all over the hacking electronic road signs story, saying officials in Texas are now "scrambling" to protect electronic road signs from the threat of hackers trying to warn us about the hordes of zombies ahead. We told you yesterday not to play with the electronic road signs.

Still, we're proud of you guys — mostly because it's the first time we've seen the zombie meme making it to the mainstream media. And the Today Show no less. Yay internets!

Matt: Come November, what do you think we'll be paying for a gallon of gasoline?
Crazy Old Coot: I'm not sure. Part of it depends on how it looks like we are making advances to alternative energy.
Matt: Can we make advances in that short time?
Crazy Old Coot: I think we can certainly show some progress in development of a battery that'll take us 100 miles or so before we have to plug it in. We need concrete plans with nuclear power. I don't think it'll [gas prices] be dramatically changed [in November], but...I don't think it's going much lower.

It's always kind of embarrassing to me watching people with no idea about Transformers trying to talk about them as though they do know what they are. Like really, anyone on the Today Show. They had Josh "I Drive Ironhide" Duhamel on this morning to talk Transformers and even Duhamel looked embarrassed as Al Roker tried to mimic being a bug and Matt Lauer asked whether all Transformers are evil. What do ya expect — n00bs. There's a little bit of video that I hadn't seen yet spliced into the interview, check it out above. – Ray Wert

[The Today Show]

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NBC's Today Show tells us this morning China's getting an extra 2,000 cars per day on city streets as the Socialist republic becomes more and more like the United States every day. One other problem they face similar to us? Nobody knows how to drive. As you'd expect it's causing 300 to 600 people being killed each day on the roadways of the world's most populous country. So what's the People's Republic to do? The thing we wish they'd mandate in Manhattan and here in some suburbs of Metro Detroit — mandatory driver's training. The requirement, along with increased enforcement of traffic violations is causing traffic deaths to drop a whole 10%. The effort, however, is only helping NBC's David Gregory 5% in his attempt to discern the differences between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. – Ray Wert

Today Show [MSNBC]

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Today Show Heads To Michigan To Cover...The New York Auto Show?; Toyota's As American As Apple Pie: So Sayeth the 'Today Show' [internal]

Not only did NBC head to Dearborn, MI to cover the New York Auto Show because apparently there's just not enough cars in the city that's big, red and delicious to do coverage right, they also managed to find a male FoMoCo engineer willing to don an "empathy belly" on TV. We salute you, Eero Laansoo, for not only strapping one on to truly become a ladies man, but then to keep it on throughout the entire segment dubbed "Lady's Choice." It was adorable. – Ray Wert

Video by Richard Blakeley

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The Today Show's Looking For Hot Fun In The Summer Time; Drops The Top On Four Convertibles; Toyota's As American As Apple Pie: So Sayeth the 'Today Show' [internal]

NBC's Today Show took a few minutes on Monday to talk about the hot temperatures — and some hot convertibles. They brought out Car & Driver Editor-in-Chief Csaba Csere — driving out a Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500, a Saturn Sky, a Volvo C70 with a bit of a hard-on top for Anne Cury to drive, and finally a Lambo Gallardo Spyder. Also, don't miss out on the "history of convertibles" at the top of the segment. Glad to see Matt got over his "I hate American cars" thing he had going a little while back — plus Csaba's looking as excited as always.

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The 'Today Show' ran a nice little piece this morning on the "fact" that foreign automakers are just as "American" as can be — and yet again we're wondering if the mainstream media ever does their homework on these pieces or if they do — what's their litmus test for what makes a company "American." We feel like maybe we've got to give them a little primer so they've got the right notes for next time.

You see, it still amazes us when the MSM ignores the reality of facts like "employment numbers" and "profit repatriation" in order to make an argument that companies like Toyota, Honda and Nissan are "American." Yes, they've got manufacturing plants here and yes, they buy some parts from suppliers here — but the big dogs — GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group have US employment numbers far and away exceeding the numbers of US employees of foreign automakers. In 2004, the Automotive Trade Policy Council provided testimony on Capitol Hill that these three US auto manufacturers directly employ 382,000 American workers, and indirectly employ over 4.4 million. On the other hand, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai directly employ 91,000 American workers, and indirectly employ 840,000. We mean, come on — 4.4 million jobs versus 840,000? That's not even close by a long shot.

But don't even get us started on repatriated profits. Off of every automobile sold here in the US — the profits (or losses in some cases) are, for the most part, going to the automaker spawning it. In Toyota and Honda's case, it's Japan — and in GM and Ford's case, it's here in the US — we dunno where Chrysler's is going — they're like a hybrid German-American hodgepodge.

But we digress, the real point here is this isn't even an argument — you're supporting American workers if you buy American — if you buy non-American you're supporting foreign manufacturers and a small number of American workers — which isn't bad, it's just not enough to be able to call yourself "American." It's as simple as that.

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