Wall Street Journal Hi-Jinks

We found this poorly punctuated gem in a WSJ.com article titled, "On Mileage, Car Makers Offer a Hybrid Message":

"Auto makers contend tougher regulations won't necessarily get Americans to switch to more fuel-efficient vehicles, and point to American's love for their trucks."

The Wall Street Journal might be a new dog in these parts, but this is an old trick: noun-possessive pronoun disagreement. The responsible parties got it right with Americans in the first clause, but it appears that the challenge of making a plural noun possessive was their undoing in the second clause. All of a sudden, we're thrown into confusion. Are we talking about a number of Americans or one person named American? If only one person, whose trucks does he or she love? The auto makers' trucks? The trucks of the Americans referred to in the first clause? (Not to be confused with our friend, American.) And why does this have such an effect on the lobbying policies of the auto makers? With the misplacement of one little apostrophe before an s instead of after it, witness the resulting chaos.

With this apocalyptic mis-apostrophe, the Wall Street Journal earns an Oops! Is My Lazy Showing? and the following Drunken Proofreading rating:

*** (three stars) - I needed a shot just to look myself in the mirror this morning.