“In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world,” President Obama said in France this April. “There have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Obama’s sweeping apologies to Europe include not just American foreign and climate policy, but also the cars that American manufacturers make. It is important to understand the administration’s eagerness for a Chrysler/Fiat alliance in that context.

”For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars,” he said during the campaign addressing a theme he has continued to sound in office.

Never mind that Chrysler’s downfall was a result of losing market share to foreign competitors that made those bigger and faster cars with better quality. What clearly appeals to the president about Fiat is his fixation with Europe’s high-mpg cars and his determination to build them here. Obama’s plan requires that, in return for a 35 percent stake in the Detroit automaker, Fiat must transplant its engine technology to Chrysler plants and produce a 40-mpg car.

But Fiat invested in fuel-efficient cars because that’s what an Italian market of high gas taxes and crowded city streets demanded. Chrysler, on the other hand, is a company that built its reputation on minivans, the iconic Jeep brand, and the earth-pawing Dodge Viper. It is a culture bred in a land of low fuel prices and vast spaces. Similar marriages in the past have ended on the rocks. GM-Fiat, for example. Or Daimler-Chrysler.

Grafting an “econobox” Fiat culture onto “ram-tough” Chrysler looks easy only to an arrogant politician who has been so dismissive of market experience, even derisive.