Do lefties want Caterpillar to hire more people?

Lots of bloggery today over the apparent dichotomy of views between President Obama and Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens over whether the stimulus package will allow Caterpillar to rehire laid off workers.   This apparently is not just a divergence of views on the efficacy of the stimulus packge, but on what the CEO said about it.  The president claimed that the CEO “said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.”

The CEO had every right to correct the record, though I’ve seen at least one person criticize him for doing so after the president left the event.  What was he to do?  Interrupt the president to correct him while he was still speaking?  That arguably would have been rude, and announcing his disagreement in a later press release would not have had nearly the same coverage.  I suppose he could have tried to make his statement with some kind of “all due respect” preface while the president was still there, but I think he did the only thing he could practically do to keep the record straight.

Dan Riehl wonders “Amateur Hour . . . or Just Lying?“  I doubt the president was just out-and-out lying, since the CEO was right there to correct things.

Now, for the title of this post . . .

Lefties protested long and loud against Caterpillar a few years ago, after Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while she tried to interfere with the destruction of a Palestinian home.  Has Caterpillar stopped selling to the IDF?  If not, it seems lefty stimulus supporters are arguing for an economic fix that could ensure more of this:

Which I personally have no problem with (that’s not Corrie, by the way, but another propaganda photo from the linked website), from what I know about it.  But either Caterpilar has stopped selling to the IDF, or lefty stimulus supporters have short memories.