A Wall Street Journal story reported today that the Obama Administration is threatening to get tough with Toyota in the wake of the automaker’s slow reaction to the unintended acceleration problem and the resulting global recall of millions of affected Toyota vehicles.

Of course, this is a bit of an about face for the Administration. According to the Journal story, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was apparently fine earlier on with Toyota’s response to the crisis. The political tune changes as the media and public seize on the issue.

The government is also questioning quite publicly whether the gas pedal "fix" that Toyota is implementing will really be enough to solve the problem. Some are speculating that the problem is actually electronic; Toyota denies and disputes that.

This still disputed question of what is the true cause of the problem is potentially explosive and game changing (in an extraordinarily negative way) for Toyota and its dealers.

As I have said all along, Toyota has been woefully slow in responding to this massive crisis of confidence in its products, brand and safety precautions. Being deliberative is fine to a point in business, but in a major crisis like this, it is actually better to show some passion in how you react.

In fact, it’s better if you actually over-react a bit in your crisis response (show people that you REALLY care and are moving heaven and earth to fix the problem pronto!).

Here’s a famous example of this crisis communications tenet. When Princess Diana was tragically killed in the auto accident in Paris, the English people went into national, very emotional mourning. Except, that is, for the stoic, vehddy British Queen Elizabeth. The Queen, not known as a fan of Diana’s, chose to circle the family wagons and grieve privately. But, the British people interpreted that as a snub and cold reaction to the death of their beloved princess. Even though the Queen thought she was doing the right thing with her private expression of grief, she should have been more visible, passionate and open in that grieving.

The crisis management lesson: Even the perception of under-reacting to a crisis can be deadly. Toyota is learning that lesson now with its slow, underwhelming response during the first big week of the crisis. The company now has a lot of catching up to do.

Not surprisingly, the January auto sales figures came out today and Toyota showed an uncharacteristic, and surprisingly steep decrease of 16%. Ford and GM both had nice sales gains in the first month of the new year.

And the story rolls on.

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