From the Times look back at the administration's auto industry approach:
A half-hour into the meeting [about the fates of GM and Chrysler in March], an aide entered the Oval Office and slipped Mr. Obama a note informing him another meeting was to begin. The president told advisers he needed more time to decide Chrysler’s fate. He then headed off for a day consumed by a new strategy for Afghanistan, a threatened rocket launch by North Korea and the evacuation of a flooded Fargo, N.D. (“What is this, a ‘West Wing’ episode?” Mr. Axelrod recalled asking Mr. Emanuel.)
Even if he wasn't a political savant, it would be worth keeping Axelrod around for these quips alone.
--Noam Scheiber