JMart reports that Dick Durbin wrote Bush in support of a pardon for George Ryan (really, Durbin?!?!?!).

Obama's colleague and close friend Sen. Dick Durbin sent a letter to the president this week requesting that he release Ryan, who is doing a 6 1/2 year federal sentence on corruption-related charges

Crazy as it sounds, I think Durbin's onto something. In fact, I think he should start pitching a "PatFitzPack of Pardons" for Bush.

After all, we know that Scooter Libby is bound to get a pardon in the next few weeks.  Conrad Black has already asked for a pardon; and what neocon President could resist that request? Throw George Ryan in there, and you've got a hat trick.

Jeebus. This gives you a sense of why GM's in such dire straits:

GM‘s financing arm, GMAC, cannot effectively access the secondary markets today. With each passing day, it is less able to finance the sale of GM vehicles, either for dealers or for the public. One year ago, GMAC was able to provide either installment or lease financing for nearly half of GM retail sales. That number has fallen to 6% today. In addition, GMAC is no longer able to buy contracts for customers with a credit score under 700, which excludes roughly half the buying population. All of this has been especially toxic to GM sales in the past two months, with sales running about 40% behind year-ago levels. [my emphasis]

Just by way of comparison, Chrysler says that they give credit to 50% of Chrysler customers (though it doesn't say whether it has been able to maintain those numbers), and Ford says it gives credit to 4 million consumers last year, though doesn't say what percentage of sales its credit arm supports.

Imagine, though, that 100 customers walk in your door--and whereas last year, you would have been able to offer 50 of them credit, but can only offer 6 of them credit this year. That's gonna cut into your business--dramatically.

Incidentally, Ford talks in much more abstract terms about how the credit crunch is affecting its business.

The present credit environment also has severely limited the ability of the automotive finance companies like Ford Motor Credit Company to access the public debt and securitization markets, and is significantly impairing our ability to support dealer and consumer financing needs. Banks and investors are exhibiting an aversion to risk and a willingness to invest in only the highest-quality financing instruments, and preferably in government instruments or government guaranteed debt. This risk aversion has expanded to a level where it is challenging to find financial counterparties to transact even simple interest rate and currency swaps, further contributing to a significant slowing of U.S. economic activity. These issues have further constrained the cash available from Ford’s normally profitable automotive finance company to support our automotive business.

I just got done listening to Diane Rehm's show on the auto begs (it was terrible, frankly); there was a great deal of skepticism whether the auto companies would get any government help this month.

Aside from the fact that GM is asking for $4 billion for operations through the end of the month and an additional $4 billion for January, there's another reason a bridge loan can't wait.

According to very recent market research (conducted by CNW Marketing Research), more than 30% of consumers who considered a GM vehicle and purchased a competitive product instead cited the possibility of GM bankruptcy as the top reason for not buying a GM product. This is more than double the percentage of the next highest reason.

To highlight this point, both the Baseline and Downside Scenarios outlined in this submission assume that consumers will consider GM products and services on their merits, and without regard to concerns relating to the company's viability. If this assumption is not true, and concerns regarding the company's viability continue to weigh on purchase decisions (as they clearly did in November 2008), the company expects to that first-quarter 2009 cash outflows would be materially worse than even the Downside Scenario. As such, clarity and prompt action adds real value to the company and to consumers.

GM's sales dropped 41% from last November's numbers; Chrysler's sales dropped 47% (the industry as a whole dropped 37%, with Ford having one of the smallest drops). In other words, all this discussion of whether or not to let GM or Chrysler go bankrupt is making it more likely that they'll go bankrupt, because they're not even keeping pace with the industry's severely contracted sales numbers.

That doesn't mean Congress will get something passed right away. But it does raise the stakes for this week's hearings.