A while ago, there was this dishonest headline over at The Detroit News: White House has 'no desire' to run GM. Yeah right. There is untruth in the actual article, however: The Obama administration has "no desire to run an auto company on a day-to-day basis," despite a GM restructuring plan that would give the Treasury Department a majority stake in the company, a White House spokesman said today.Robert Gibbs made the statement just hours after General Motors Corp. submitted an offer to restructure its debt that would result in the government holding at least 50 percent of the company's outstanding stock.
Gibbs said that doesn't mean the administration wants to run GM.
"This administration and this government have no desire to run an auto company on a day-to-day basis," Gibbs said.
How is holding more than half the company stock not indicative of control? In addition, if in fact the government had no desire to run the auto company, what's with the "day-to-day basis" suffix? Doesn't that by itself change the meaning of the statement? It indicates to me that the government just wants to make the big global decisions (make more hybrids, smaller cars, yada, yada) and leave the day-to-day operations to the company. In essence, they would be the brain handing out directions to the peons that would then have to simply carry out orders. I'm just sayin'. In any case, further evidence of Obama's wanton control of GM came in the form of the firing of CEO Rick Wagoner. More details have now come to light. From The Detroit Free Press comes this: Kicking Wagoner out caused outrage and shock at GM.
Rick Wagoner arrived at the U.S. Treasury building in Washington for another appointment with government officials about the survival of General Motors Corp.
It was March 27, almost nine years after he become chief executive officer. He'd been summoned by Steven Rattner, the Wall Street deal-maker running President Barack Obama's auto task force.
He didn't know Rattner's team had decided it needed to break GM in order to fix it. Wagoner, unwilling to consider bankruptcy, was in the way.
Rattner asked Wagoner for a one-on-one chat in his office. He told Wagoner it was time to step down.
Wagoner returned to the meeting room and told Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson and Chief Financial Officer Ray Young that he was fired. They were shocked. Some board members were furious.
"I want out," said one GM director. "When they made the decision to fire Wagoner without talking to the board, that did it. We had a conversation with Rattner. I told him it's our responsibility to pick the CEO."
Wagoner declined to comment for this report. People who know him say he is still upset and spending time at his vacation home on Daufuskie Island, S.C.
Who says Obama doesn't want to run GM again?
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