I’ll be honest. Lately I’ve been stifling myself here, in my own house, on my blog. I’ve been searching for inspiration to share and ignoring certain things that I’m really passionate about. So tonight, I’m going to start returning to my roots of having an opinion on everything.

Today’s opinion topic: The railroading and scapegoating of Toyota for a massive recall for what appears to be an obscure defect. One that has been reported to result in a few dozen injuries and maybe a half-dozen deaths. Yes, death is a serious, even tragic result, but we’re talking probably 50 out of millions of cars and people.

Considerably fewer deaths or injuries cased by the Bridgestone/Firestone tire defect.

Thing is, 50/2.5 million is still pretty good in the safety department when you consider all the things we do every day that put us in danger; including driving cars. So if there’s some rare defect on a car that’s still considered one of the safest, I say the outrage is misplaced.

Ah, but the plot thickens. I don’t think the media circus and Congressional Hearings are all being instigated and created by some very savvy PR folks representing the American car makers.

Think about it: The best PR is the kind you never see. It’s about pulling the right strings, getting the ear of the right people and finding the right channels to distribute your message. It’s about manipulatingconvincing a targeted audience that the message is true, even when it isn’t.

And no one does this better than lobbyists for big business interests.

And the American car making industry is one of the biggest interests in the country.

Bottom line. Its all a show and a scapegoating of the competition. We can only have the expectation the cars are reasonably safe; i.e. safe enough to pass safety standards. We can expect and even demand quality. What we can’t expect is perfection.

So I call bullshit on the Congressional hearing and I call bullshit on the smear campaign against Toyota.