The successful candidate for car czar

Position: Car Czar

Job Location: Between a rock and a hard place

Job Description: The Bush Administration seeks a real self-starter to head a new government initiative to rehabilitate portions of the automotive market under duress. The successful candidate must have an extremely positive attitude, because he will manage a painful transition of one of the most troubled sectors during one of the most disturbing economic crises of modern times.

Responsibilities will include a total restructuring of the U.S. automotive industry. This may include mass layoffs, multiple management changes, restructuring of debt, and nail-biting negotiations with creditors. The successful candidate will keep watch on an industry that will need to vastly reorganize dealer networks, work with labor organizations toward new agreements, and develop new part sourcing networks, as a large number of parts suppliers likely will go out of business no matter what happens.

Money management experience is a plus, because the successful candidate will manage one of the largest government loans in history (though a mere $15 billion or so looks like small potatoes compared to what the folks over in the finance sector have). To ensure the government does not blindly throw taxpayer money at problems, the successful candidate will ensure the automotive firms make satisfactory progress over a certain time period, the details of which are vaguely laid out in pending legislation. As the first order of business, the successful candidate will limit CEO pay and take away those luxury private jets those chief execs flew to congressional hearings, where they had the gall to beg Congress for money.

The successful candidate must come into the position knowing that no taxpayer in the United States is likely to like him very much. Some taxpayers won"t like the successful candidate because they feel he"s simply throwing good money at bad companies, which in their view is equivalent to burning a pile of cash in a hole in the backyard. Other taxpayers won"t like the successful candidate because he will oversee a massive amount of closings of both factories and automotive dealerships, the kind of family businesses that support local little league, Rotary Club, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and even the Elks. In other words, the candidate will oversee the likely destruction of many businesses that served as cornerstones of Main Street America.

Experience: Because no sane individual would really want this incredibly and unfathomably challenging job, the successful candidate will likely have experience with mental health professionals.