In a carefully scripted speech March 30, President Obama rejected as inadequate the third offering of long-term viability plans authored by management of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. His task force concluded that Chrysler was beyond repair and must be merged to survive; and GM, while potentially viable, fell short in their analysis. Having thrown Chrysler overboard, the President went on to assure us that the federal government has no interest in running General Motors.

"Some good was accomplished by the President's task force, though. Rick Wagoner was forced out as chairman and chief executive officer of GM and replaced by Fritz Henderson as president and chief executive and Kent Kresa as interim chairman. I suspect that GM's management will stop guessing at what it takes to pass government muster and instead will meekly submit to the viability plan of Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom, the top two officials on Obama's auto task force. In effect, GM's operating management consists of the Rattner/Bloom team and its board is the President and Congress. But, of course, the federal government has no...