Rep. John Campbell considers the future of Saturn under Roger Penske, the businessman who recently struck a deal to acquire the brand from GM:

Penske is already the distributor in the United States for the Smart car (built by Mercedes), which has demonstrated significant success. He will have the option of having other manufacturers build Saturn branded cars and/or sell other brands with the promise of Saturn treatment and service.
Suppose an upstart electric car company wanted national distribution for its cars — perhaps Saturn would be a good place to get that? Or suppose Peugeot, Renault or other foreign automakers wanted back in the U.S. market, Saturn stores could prove to be a ready and willing conduit.
This sort of “Best Buy” of car retailing, or “contract manufacturing” instead of a company owning the plants that build its cars, is a new and untried concept in the car business. It’s risky, but it just might work. That’s what entrepreneurs do. They take risks to create something new. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.

My question, which I e-mailed to Campbell’s office, is this: “Contract manufacturing” sounds like a great deal for the U.S. consumer and a terrible deal for the UAW, so is there any danger that the Obama administration will try to impose conditions on the Penske deal, which is still in the air? Didn’t Treasury already try to block this kind of thing when it reportedly forced Magna, the Canadian auto parts group that bought Opel from GM, to agree not to sell Opels in the U.S. market? The adminstration later denied this report, stating that any decisions regarding Opel were made by GM, not the U.S. government. But that’s a distinction without a difference, in my view.