Is Volkswagen the Nashville Housing Market of Automakers?

Senator Bob Corker's favorite automaker, Volkswagen, is getting a slice of the positive press in today's Tennessean that it has been enjoying in the Chattanooga Times Free Press for months. Supporters of non-union automaking shops argue that their favorite manufacturers make a product substantially better than that which comes from Detroit's "Big 3," even as foreign car makers increasingly fall on hard times. Someone has to be the last to fall, the last to die for a mistake. Just like the Nashville housing market has been slow to follow the trend of depressed real estate elsewhere, maybe Volkswagen is among the last to fall or maybe they just did not go on the obscene spending sprees of other manufacturers. But arguing that their product is profoundly different than that of other manufacturers is like arguing that there is a drastic difference between Democrats and Republicans in red-state Tennessee.

Full disclosure: I've been the satisfied owner of three Volkswagens in the past.