Steven Rattner had but one assignment when the president brought him to Washington in February. But it was a big one: Save the American auto industry.

And ends:

"I can tell you, going back a long way with this guy, he is scrupulously honest and a great public servant," Michael Bloomberg, New York mayor who hired Quadrangle to manage his multibillion-dollar fortune last year and has said he is sticking with the company, told The Associated Press.

Yeah. There it is, you sniveling louts out there in the pig-farmer demographic! You pushed a great man to quit. He saved your stinking little car business, but that's not enough. Is it?! Now you want his head! (Unlike Spitzer, who, evidently, just wanted some head.)

Even TPM seems to be gazing at its own reflection in the mirror, looking deeply into its own eyes and asking whether such a thing can be true:

So: is Steve Rattner stepping down as the Obama administration's car czar because of the investigation into whether his private-equity fund used pay-to-play tactics to win business from New York's public pension fund?

Probably.

See... we poked around. Had to make sure this wasn't some Jeff Sessions' plot to screw a good Democrat out of a well-deserved, ultra-lucrative future. And we've been kicking over the furniture and rifling through drawers, and... dammit... looks like he may just be leaving because his business standards are a little shy of copasetic.

Pig farmers...

In fact, Rattner's standards are 'bout $1.1 million shy - the fix-money figure his private equity firm, Quadrangle, allegedly paid a political consultant to steer it business with a heavyweight New York pension fund, those all-purpose seedbeds of ready capital so popular with hedge fund managers not so long ago and prosecutors now. In this case, the pension fund reportedly is worth about $122 billion.

This story is sooo... New Yorky! There are sooo many interesting interconnections and strange bedfellows. For instance, another big, politically hefty firm caught up in this investigation, the Carlyle Group, tidied up its part in the scandal by agreeing to a $20 million settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office. George Soros is a big investor with this shadowy, fascinating company - which manages investments as diversified as Dr. Pepper and defense-industry players Voight Aircraft and United Defense Industries.

...And Rattner and Soros live in the same Manhattan apartment building! They could go roller-blading together!

And talk about connections, Rattner is married to big-time Democratic fundraiser Maureen White, known in political circles (from what I can gather out here in Podunk) as an enormously influential Gal About Town.

Here's a somewhat more gimlet-eyed look from always-controversial columnist Taki Theodoracopulos, back when the stink over the Quadrangle deal first began circulating in the spring:

Quadrangle (which Rattner founded around 2000)... was meant to invest in media properties, and it did. It bought Felix Dennis's semi-porn ladmags, Maxim, Blender, and Stuff, mags I have never read but, once upon a time, were big money makers. This was a bust, and the Quadrangle Group had to call upon other investors, drawing on Rattner's social and political connections. One of the investors was Cerberus, a giant private equity firm which had bought Chrysler some time back. Here comes the first tricky part. When the porn business continued to do badly, Rattner played hard ball with Cerberus after defaulting on the loan at Alpha Media ("A payer he is not," was the way someone described Mr. Rodent.)

Then, out of the blue, Rattner was named Obama's front man to deal with the auto mess, which to my mind is a bit like sending Ezra Merkin or Walter Noel to deal with Madoff's victims. My question is how can Chrysler get a fair deal - not that it should after the lousy cars it's made these last 75 years - from a man that owes it a fortune? Rattner, of course, left Quadrangle once he got the Washington job, not that it means much. He still has his equity in the group and knows which side his bread is buttered on.

Reportedly, Quadrangle won over $100 million worth of business out of its $1.1 million pension fund "investment". Butter, indeed.