• Detroit Free Press, Time.com, Wednesday, December 2, 2009 10:40 AM

Mark Phelan doubles up on the wintry metaphors this morning, writing that Fritz Henderson has been on a slippery slope of thin ice since the day he first laced 'em up as CEO of General Motors. As the handpicked lieutenant of previously ousted CEO Rick Wagoner, the board viewed him frostily from the get-go, it appears.

The board's decision Tuesday to keep its struggling Swedish Saab brand going for another month as it entertains offers may have been the final straw (that broke the ice?). Henderson had made it clear that he would not hesitate to "pull the plug" on struggling nameplates.

The bottom line is that chairman -- and now CEO -- Ed Whitacre now runs GM, writes Fortune's Alex Taylor III. Former Boeing executive Alan Mulally already has partially disproved the old saw of auto-industry insiders that their business is much too complicated for an outsider to comprehend.

Taylor III says Henderson was tone deaf to the board, lollygagging on replacing CFO Ray Young, and then had several deals blow up (Saturn, Opel, Saab). "Whitacre has served notice that 'this isn't your father's GM' anymore," he writes. "All of the auto world will be watching to find out what kind of GM he wants it to be."

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