Micheline Maynard on GM : 1) Rattner: "We're not going to fail ." I would say that lets us say he failed if he fails! Specifically, it rules out the "We're giving them a shot but if they collapse in a couple of years at least we delayed it" defense.. .. 2) Rattner's problem has always been his high profiling in the press. Yesterday he was quoted boasting about not failing in the same newspaper in which his (possibly more powerful) auto task force colleague, Ron Bloom, was attempting to strike a lower key note  in testimony to Congress....  3) The government isn't going to run GM--it's a "passive shareholder"--but according to Rattner it is going to change GM's culture. OK!. ... 4) So here's how the culture will change, if I read Maynard right: By empowering GM's holdover old guard managers who are steeped in the old culture to make decisions without consulting the holdover old guard CEO, Fritz Henderson. Sounds like a dramatic "wholesale restructuring" to me. . .. 5) This delegation of power to the existing bureaucrats will also be accompanied by "a deeper level of scrutiny" from the board of directors. But no second-guessing, of course. ..  

Meanwhile at FIAT/Chrysler: Sergio Marchionne is speed dating ...  

And I have buried the lede: Robert Farago has an amazing, Washington-Monthly esque explanation for GM's "crap interiors." I don't quite believe it. But if true, it should be a segment on "60 Minutes" ... 2:39 A.M.

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Jennifer Rubin gives her trademark optimistic analysis (from an anti-Wagner Act union perspective) of the prospects for "card check" compromise. ... The CW is less optimistic, I think. ... 2:07 A.M.

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