[gwc]

I don't mind smart people with limited relevant experience having opinions or even defending them vigorously. However three passages in particular struck me:

Mr. Deese was not the only one favoring the Fiat deal, but his lengthy memorandum on how liquidation would increase Medicaid costs, unemployment insurance and municipal bankruptcies ended the debate.

Every time Mr. Deese ran the numbers on G.M. and Chrysler, he came back with the now-obvious conclusion that neither was a viable business, and that their plans to revive themselves did not address the erosion of their revenues.

How is he drawing his conclusions? Does he really have a deep enough understanding of the underlying model when he 'runs the numbers'?

From there, he can make it quickly to the press office to help devise explanations for why taxpayers are spending more than $50 billion on what polls show is a very unpopular bailout of the auto industry.

I'm sure the NYT is not giving us the whole story, but there's a piece of me that worries that what makes this guy successful is not intelligence (though he certainly may be smart) but charisma. Just because you can sling a good presentation / memorandum and speak eloquently about it does not mean you should be setting critical government policy about tremendously complex problems.