Here’s a hint to present and future Presidents — when selecting an example to demonstrate the success of your economic policies, find one that’s an actual success.  Barack Obama hailed New Chet’s Restaurant in his speech last week to auto workers in Cleveland in justifying his extension of the automaker bailouts in 2009:

And this plant, or the earlier plant that used to — that I guess is still right down the road, this is the economic rock of the community.  You depend on it, and so do thousands of Americans.  The Wrangler you build here directly supports 3,000 other jobs, with parts manufactured all across America.  Doors from Michigan.  Axles from Kentucky.  Tires from Tennessee.  And this plant indirectly supports hundreds of other jobs right here in Toledo.  After all, without you, who’d eat at Chet’s or Inky’s or Rudy’s?

Well, no one will be eating at New Chet’s anyway.  As the Boss Emeritus and Gateway Pundit point out, New Chet’s will close its doors this weekend … a victim of the economy, as well as government intervention:

An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government’s Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history.

Co-owner Richard Lawrence of New Chet’s Restaurant in Toledo says business has fallen victim to the economy and the workplace smoking ban approved by Ohio voters in 2006. He told The Blade newspaper of Toledo on Wednesday that auto industry cutbacks also hurt.

Gee, those tens of billions of dollars made all the difference, huh?  Maybe the federal government should conduct a restaurant bailout, because when New Chet’s closes, that’s going to hurt the sale of produce, meat, cleaning materials, and so on in Toledo.  Next time, maybe Obama should check to see whether a business is actually succeeding before using them as an example of success, rather than just jotting down the names of local businesses to insert into speeches.

Note well that the nanny-state intervention (by Ohio’s voters in this case, not Obama or the federal government) played a role in killing off New Chet’s, too.  We have seen the same problem in Minnesota after the state passed bans that essentially tell business owners that they can’t determine for themselves whether to allow smoking or not.  Smokers stay home, keep their dollars with them, and businesses end up either failing or damaged as a result.

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