On numerous occasions, de facto Car Czar Steven Rattner has said that neither he nor the U.S. government wants to be in the auto business--at least not for long. Those sentiments were reaffirmed yesterday when Rattner indicated that the feds are planning to sell off their 60.8% stake in the New GM as soon as possible.

In its race to exit the auto industry, the government probably won't receive a terrifically high return on the loans it has made to General

Think that the government shouldn't be in the auto business? You're not alone.

We already knew that, but thanks to a survey from Tustin, California research and analysis firm AutoPacific, we can put a number to it: 81 percent agreed that the faster the government gets out of the auto business, the better, and more than half think that GM (54 percent) and Chrysler (58 percent) should have been allowed to fail.

The results are very fresh; they're

Newly tapped General Motors Chairman Edward E. Whitacre, Jr. may have built AT&T into a telecommunications powerhouse, but it's fair to question whether he can help do the same for GM. You see, he isn't particularly savvy on the whole auto business thing. In his own words: "I don't know anything about cars." While he admits that cars are a new consideration for him, Whitacre doesn't see it as a much of a problem: "A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I'm not that old, and I think the business principles are the same." The 67-year-old Whitacre