THE ECONOMY:

Trying to drive a different spin

Michigan senator attempts to help the battered images of the Big Three’s CEOs, but …

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Washington — As Detroit’s Big Three automakers head to Capitol Hill to plead again for a federal bailout, their home state senator, Carl Levin, D-Mich., is doing all he can to boost their image.

Upset that the three automaker chief executives had been ridiculed for flying to Washington in private jets two weeks ago as their companies foundered, Levin is looking for ways to restore their image — going so far as to buttonhole a reporter for a certain newspaper in a certain distant Western state to plead for fairness.

Two weeks ago, deep in the basement of the Capitol, where a subway ferries lawmakers to and from their offices, Levin stopped to answer questions from that reporter. He did so, then asked a question of his own: Who cares about commuting habits of chief executives when the fate of the U.S. auto industry was at stake?

He asked for a favor. Why not ask the people critical of the corporate flights how they think the AIG executives came to town for their congressional hearings? (AIG was the corporate giant whose execs were found to have enjoyed a $440,000 corporate retreat at a spa even as they were collecting an $85 billion federal bailout.)

Wednesday, the reporter asked AIG about its execs’ Washington trip.

An attorney for one of the former AIG execs could not be reached. But a spokeswoman for Robert Willumstad, another former AIG exec who had come to Washington, said her client did not jet-set in when he was called to testify.

“Bob took the Metroliner,” she said about the Amtrak train from New York. “And it wasn’t even a first-class ticket.”

Sorry, Senator.

Worth noting: As executives for the Big Three automakers arrive today for do-over hearings in their quest for $34 billion in federal funds, they are driving into town in cars made by the very companies they are trying to save — a road trip to win hearts and minds, and billions of bucks.