GOP to Motor City: Drop Dead (Updated)

The Republicans will use their last remaining days of Senate power to screw the auto companies, killing a bill that would have shot the dying GM, Ford and Chrysler up with $14 billion in government cash. GOP Senators demanded wage and benefit cuts from the United Auto Workers, for which the union did not go, and when they didn't get them the bill collapsed. The White House said President Bush, partially emerging from his now-customary fog, will consider using some of the general bailout fund (created when it was bankers who were begging for money and America couldn't act fast enough) to shore up the failing companies till they can be delivered, like Jimmy Cagney's corpse in Public Enemy, to Obama's doorstep on January 20. (Update: Treasury says "we will stand ready" to assist the automakers, by which they probably mean use of the TARP funds.)