Maybe, but it’s in Fiat’s shaky hands.

Washington is through messing around with Detroit. The official announcement that General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner is resigning as a condition of ongoing, government-mandated restructuring didn't come from a member of the Auto Task Force, and it didn't come from the treasury secretary. It came from President Obama. And, to Wagoner's credit, when the chief executive asked him to quit, he did.

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli didn't rate such dramatic treatment, but that's because our other struggling, effectively bankrupt major carmaker has been cut loose. According to the administration's "New Path to Viability for GM & Chrsyler" (available as a PDF from the White House Web site), there really isn't a path to viability for Chrysler, because, the Auto Task Force says, the company can't achieve that goal.

At least not solo, which is where Fiat comes in. While the government has nationalized GM at the management level, it's taken on the role of deal-broker with Chrysler. You can discern the ruthless stamp of the Auto Task Force's Steve Rattner, the investment banker who's become the car czar in all but name, on these moves: hardball leadership replacement at GM, which has a chance of coming out of all this with cars people want to buy, and a quick, opportunistic shedding of the Chrysler problem.

According to the administration's instructions, GM will get "working capital" for 60 days in order to further restructure and reorganize its debt, with a $16.6 billion payout at the end. Chrysler, however, has been commanded to execute a partnership with Fiat in 30 days, to be rewarded with $6 billion in federal funds.

That's right, we'd be paying Fiat to take Chrysler off our hands, much as Chrysler's former owner, Daimler, paid Cerberus to acquire the Pentastar back in 2007. It's liable to be a weird and dysfunctional marriage, but if nothing else, it may add a bit of sprezzatura to Detroit and set the stage for Fiat to acquire and then sell some storied Chrysler brands, notably Jeep. Or it could be a disaster, but chances are it wouldn't even approach Daimler's $40 billion botch.

There are some obstacles to overcome. Like GM, Chrysler has bondholder issues; those who hold Chrysler's debt would rather not see it reduced or erased. (Cerberus might not care at this point, assuming that a gradual Fiat takeover of Chrysler would allow it to unwind its adventure in carland.) But Rattner—who informed Wagoner that the administration wanted him to step down—is losing patience with the debt-reorganization impasse that has stalled GM's and Chrysler's progress the last two months. The message now is that there's a new sheriff in town, and he's not afraid to unholster his pistols.