Mar. 31--HIGH GAS PRICES LAST SUMMER -- not big trucks and SUVs -- ultimately dragged Rick Wagoner down.

The Obama administration contends that General Motors Corp. isn't viable partly because it invested too much in full-size pickups and sport utility vehicles -- presumably at CEO Wagoner's behest.

But so did Ford Motor Co., Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan -- and even Honda, to some extent.

Maybe President Barack Obama and his advisers should look at the sales figures. Every year, the top two vehicles are big pickups. Even in a rancid economy, the hottest-selling used vehicles today are full-size pickups and big SUVs.

GM didn't create that demand. It chased those sales because that's where the dollars were. How would Wall Street have reacted if GM had ignored that market?

Over the last five years, the company used income from truck sales to pay for operations and develop strong new high-quality vehicles such as the Chevy Malibu, Equinox crossover, Cruze compact sedan, Cadillac CTS, hybrid pickups and the Chevy Volt.

When gas prices shot up last summer -- pushed by Wall Street speculators, not demand -- the wheels fell off the auto industry's business model. All, including the Japanese Big Three, struggle to recover.

Within a month of $4-a-gallon gas, many automakers saw a 35 percent decline in their cash flow as truck sales plunged. And, like most consumers who live on a shaky combination of cash and credit, GM began to stagger after just one quarter.

Blame GM for not investing in good small- and medium-size cars sooner. Criticize it for not putting a higher priority earlier on great design.

But some of GM's good new vehicles are on the market today because the company profited for years from sales of red-hot pickups and SUVs.

In December, when Wagoner seemed stunned by Congress' vitriolic questions about the auto industry, he looked like a man in trouble. Friends and colleagues know Wagoner as an unflappable exec who had steered GM through many crises.

Few expected his career to end like this.

Many dealers would like to thank Wagoner for smoothly juggling market demands, product development, Wall Street criticism and a damaged image.

Too bad he couldn't keep that last ball in the air, the ill-intentioned one thrown in by Washington politics.

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