Steve Chapman  Chrysler has not exactly set the world on fire
either. It torched $8 billion last year. Some of its investors
now value their stakes at pennies on the dollar -- or nothing.
Its U.S. sales have plunged by nearly half over the last decade.
In this year's Consumer Reports rankings of the 10 worst cars,
seven are GM or Chrysler products.  The administration's own
industry task force doesn't share Obama's unbounded optimism. In
a report released this week, it noted that GM's supposed
salvation, the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, "will likely be
too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term."
It ridiculed GM's own cheery forecast, which assumes rising
profits "despite a severely distressed market, lingering
consumer quality perceptions and an increase in smaller vehicles
(where the company has previously struggled to maintain pricing
power)." Even under generous assumptions, it said, GM would keep
losing money.  Given all these sad tidings, it's hard to avoid
the conclusion that the