Two weeks ago, CEOs from Detroit’s “Big Three” car makers showed up in Washington begging for $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money for their cash-strapped companies. They got there in private jets. Yeah, that went over about as well as an Angelina Jolie keynote speech at a Promise Keepers convention.

So now the bailout-handout price tag has risen to $38 billion, and for that kind of money General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was willing to drive himself to Washington. In what Wired called a “shameless” PR stunt, Wagoner’s peeps announced early this week that he would be driving a Chevy Volt, GM’s futuristic plug-in hybrid car.

My first reaction is, “My GOD, that is either a very tall man or a very tiny car.” OK, he’s 6-foot-4, but that did not look like it could have been a comfortable ride for the 525-mile trip from Detroit to Washington.

Oh, wait. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank did a 1pm liveblog Q&A today about the Capitol Hill hearing that will be replayed at all the Toyota and Honda holiday parties this year.

Here’s one question and answer from Milbank’s session:

Question: You just did an excellent car review. The GM CEO drove down in a Tahoe or something, but he took the Volt to the capital, because the Volt can’t drive that far, but he wanted to show it off. That’s the problem with this car, which is supposed to be GM’s great savior: it has about a 40 mile limit on the battery. Who needs Road and Track?

Milbank’s Answer: Yes, word around here is they had to bring it over on a flatbed or some such.

That explains it! Wagoner didn’t drive that matchbox car more than about 10 or 12 blocks. Probably had a police escort and some Hollywood grips pushing it uphill, just out of camera range.

Here’s a pic of Wagoner getting out of the actual car he drove from Detroit, at his Washington hotel. It wasn’t actually a Tahoe. It was a Malibu hybrid, which is an actual production car — the kind GM keeps losing billions of dollars on, by the way.

I feel so used.