Tough spot for President Bush.
Prudent economics don't usually make for popular politics. His resilience in the face of opposition to the war on terror has proven that he's not overly concerned with merely having a popular legacy.
However, he is cognizant of the fact that despite so many polls showing that the auto bailout is not popular among the general public, the public has a very short memory, and that the media will portray him as personally killing Detroit for years to come.
Ten years from now, teenagers would know that some white guy named Bush single-handedly killed the American auto industry, but they wouldn't quite know how. It's just what they had always been told.
Discuss