It was a dose of tough love that President-elect Barack Obama offered the American auto industry Monday. America shouldn't let the auto makers "vanish," he said at a news conference. But the auto companies should get help, he added, only when they show a better plan for pulling out of their downward slide.

It seems the only love auto makers can get from Washington these days is of the tough variety -- and from some quarters they can't get even that. All told, the auto industry is seeing its political support crumple like a...