How familiar does this sound? Washington bails out an enormous industry with tens of billions of (borrowed) dollars, tells that industry to tighten its ship to become self-sustaining and viable, and then blasts the industry when it starts doing just that.

We’ve seen this with the banks — which were asked not to make bad loans at the same time they were asked to increase lending — and now we’re seeing it with the automakers, who have been requested to trim their fat just before being attacked for closing plants and reducing the number of dealerships.

The latest attack occurred yesterday in a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) went after some of Detroit’s executives for their plans to cut back on dealerships (from The Washington Post):

“Let me be very clear — I don’t believe that companies should be allowed to take taxpayer funds for a bailout and then leave local dealers and their customers to fend for themselves with no real notice and no real help. It’s just plain wrong,” he said.

I don’t mean to defend these industries, whose long history of poor decisions led to their own demise. But if the recovery is to be successful, is it too much to ask for some consistent messaging out of Congress?