But isn't the Delorean the "Car of the Future"?

The Chevy Volt - which, despite its name, runs on less than 1.21 gigawatts - is the car being asked to "save" General Motors. This electric model will produce zero emissions for most Americans (those that drive less than 40 miles per day) and goes from zero to 60 in nine seconds. (No word on how soon it gets to 88 miles per hour.)

The full model isn't due until next year, and it's going through some growing pains. In the meantime, as Wired reports, the Obama administration is trying to kill it. The task force appointed by the President to oversee handouts to the auto industry doesn't think the zero-carbon electric car will be profitable anytime soon. According to this blue-ribbon panel - which, incidentally, gets paid whether or not GM goes belly-up - GM should focus on more immediately marketable vehicles, rather than vehicles which will be marketable long-term.

Somehow, the Obama Administration has succeeded in being more nearsighted than Detroit auto manufacturers.

If GM was flush with profit, it would be a good time to experiment with new technology. Unfortunately, they are currently being propped up with someone else's money. The Obama Administration wants a return on their investment, and they won't let things like the long-term viability of GM get in the way.

That's the downside of asking for money from a controlling interest that doesn't understand your business.

No brakes! Rolling down the slippery slope in a GM car

The President of the United States is now firing CEOs. And why not? If the American Government is bankrolling a business, shouldn't the CEO of the American Government have the power to hire and fire the leader of its subsidiaries?

Maybe this is the journalism degree talking, but when I heard that Rick Wagoner was being let go by General/Obama Motors, my first thought went back to a story that broke last week: Senator Benjamin Cardin proposing that newspapers be able to exist as tax-exempt entities. Essentially, this would grant the struggling local newspaper industry a bailout of sorts.

Ask anyone who has worked at a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization and they will tell you that there are certain things you can and can't do - for instance, you can't endorse or oppose candidates for office. Thus tax-exempt status is a tradeoff - you don't have to pay taxes, but in return your speech is limited by the government.

In other words, the newspaper bailout would create a plan where government would limit newspapers' speech - a plan which would carry financial incentives over alternatives, such as finding new and innovative ways to deliver content. And though current tax exempt law still offers a great deal of freedom, how long will that last when a 501(c)(3) paper starts printing something unpopular?

Perhaps I'm stretching a bit to envision a world where government would use a newspaper's tax exempt status as a way to regulate content. But if you told me five years ago that the President of the United States would dismiss the head of the world's second-largest automaker, I would have said you were stretching a bit, as well.