By now you’ve likely already heard that the Obama Administration requested that Rick Wagoner step aside as GM’s CEO (it’s been in all the papers). I’m not terribly surprised by this development, as is, well, nobody.

It’s not fair to blame Wagoner entirely for the current state of GM. A colleague of mine once said that GM had been in the process of going bankrupt for 30 years, and she was absolutely right. The company has suffered for decades from poor management, lousy products, ridiculously bad market predictions, squandered equity, laughable labor contracts, and of course brand bloat. Wagoner inherited a lot of the problems that GM has, which makes me a little surprised that Obama isn’t more sympathetic.

The Wagoner regime hasn’t been all bad. It has given us some of the best cars GM has ever produced, from the new Cadillac CTS to the Chevy Malibu, the Buick Enclave to the Tahoe Hybrid. In fact, pretty much every car GM has introduced since about 2007 has been at least competitive, if not an outright class leader.
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