"What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

As if the post facto screwing of the bond-holders with all that that will entail for the economy down the road wasn't a big enough reason for the Obama administration not to have taken over Chrysler (and not to take over GM), we're seeing suspicions, and reasons for suspicion, of this:

Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Repubicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.

And, apparently

one of the guys advising SecTreas on this thing is married to someone who used to be one of the people in charge of fundraising for the Democratic Party. This explains so much it’s scary.

Listen, I try to avoid hyperbole. It tends to be counterproductive, and if you hyperventilate about everything, then hyperventilating about the big stuff can be ignored because, well, you hyperventilate about everything, so where's the credibility?

But. If the Obama administration is actually using the Chrysler bankruptcy Government Takeover to punish polital opponents and/or reward political supporters, that's a grotesque abuse of power. It is as bad as anything Richard Nixon did. And it ought not be allowed to stand, because we are not a nation of laws if it does - we become a nation where political patronage is not only a component of success, it is the primary component of success. And that's is one of the roads to ruin.