The CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, tried to put a nice spin on his firm’s evident and serious woes. Writer John Tamny takes a scalpel to Wagoner’s explanation here and finds it quite unconvincing.

Perhaps the most absurd part of the spin is that GM’s huge labor costs should be viewed not as weak, short-sighted management decisions that gave away far to much to the strong, short-sighted union officials, but rather as a kind of philanthropy that more companies should practice.