The big news this morning is the administration's refusal to bail out GM, without its making major concessions -- and the simultaneous forced resignation of GM's head. But several months from now, the automaker seems likely to get its bailout for the reason Mickey Kaus elaborates: Now that the feds, so to speak, own the company, Obama can't risk the political fallout from a shutdown.

As the GOP wanders in the wilderness, everyone knows the conventional names being bandied about for 2012 -- Palin, Huckabee, Romney, even Gingrich. Here are two other possibilities -- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (whose 2012 nomination has already been predicted by colleague David Bernstein). And Gen. David Petraeus -- who I think is a real possibility, should Obama's administration lose popular favor. More on that in a later column

A large part of the allure of the NCAA tournament is the annual emergence of the Cinderella team that comes out of nowhere to captivate the nation. But sports fans have begun to notice that the Cinderellas are disappearing long before midnight. It's impossible for these nobodys to compete with the big guys -- especially since the NCAA lords have begun doing such a competent job of seeding the teams beforehand.

About six weeks ago ago, we filed a piece on how newspapers could reorganize themselves to survive in the internet age -- eventually charging for online content. It's theme that has preoccupied ace blogger Alan Mutter, who recently posted a piece from Bill Grueskin, former managing editor of wsj.com, on how news sites might be able to charge for content in the future

It may seem odd to be attacking Barack Obama, the visionary, for a failure of vision. But ever since he took office, he has failed to make his economic recovery program appealing to the masses by giving people something tangible to believe in. It's not surprising, given that he's delegated economic policymaking to a bunch of, well, economists.

There are a lot of things that presidents can't do that a private citizen can because they represent all the people. Thus when Obama revealed his NCAA picks yesterday -- going with North Carolina and critiquing some of the other teams and players -- it was inevitable that many of the partisans of the other contenders would not be amused.