GM Bankruptcy fallout

The fallout from the announced bankruptcy of GM and a plan by the federal government to take up to a 60% ownership stake, as well as funnel as much as 50 billion additional dollars into the struggling automaker has received very dismal reviews from an American Public tired of government intervention. However, just like the wall street and bank bailouts, as well as the original auto company infusions last year, the newest act has been defended by the administration as neccessary to stave off a complete breakdown in the American economy.
In addition to the thousands of jobs at General Motors itself there are also many other tens of thousands of jobs all over the country that depend on the faltering auto giant such as suppliers, vendors, and dealers who are mercilessly tied to whatever decisions are made in regards to the company.
David Brooks, a long skeptic of government intervention in the private sector, and who has written extensively on the subject of Detroit's money woes, penned a scathing op-ed in today's New York times that wacks the company from the top down. Most of the points made show a company that has an embedded and doomed corporate culture blind to ever changing consumer demands and a fraternal pecking order that squelches quality talent. He also criticizes the politically powerful UAW, the bloated workers union that now also owns a stake in the company and who's past and present practices are not representative of the fundamental change needed to get the company back on it's feet.
One point that's also been brought up in opposition is that it may be difficult for the company to succeed if it is serving two masters. One being it's new majority shareholder, the US government, which has just laid down new tough rules on emissions, rules that could hamstring the company as it struggles to rebrand itself. The other being the market itself, which needs to be convinced their cars are of better quality than the smaller, more affordable Japanese and German cars that have dominated the market over the past few years, all at the same time meeting the environmental standards of it's new boss.
The GM issue could also become political poison for Democrats as Republicans will be poised next year to point to the GM example as just more and more out of control spending that yields no new jobs, lethargic economic growth, and more and more debt for future generations to pay for.
Other comparisons have also been made to GM as a model of where the US itself may be heading. As more and more debt piles on, and more and more companies are labeled as "too big to fail," where will the US government itself go when the burden of propping up these companies becomes too much?