Ex-Car Czar's First Pick to Run GM Was Not an American

Among the revelations in the new book by former auto czar Steve Rattner -- the first person he turned to for the top at General Motors was Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn is the CEO of Nissan-Renault. Ghosn is French (born in Brazil) and of Lebanese descent.

The Detroit News obtained a draft of the book.

He asked Ghosn: "Would you be interested in becoming CEO of GM?"

Ghosn declined.

"I knew it was a long shot and was not surprised when he deftly demurred," Rattner recalled.

Fox News notes Rattner's revelations about the firing of the original CEO Rick Wagoner:

When Wagoner was ousted, Obama expressed concern about allowing Wagoner to collect $7.1 million of the $22.1 million he was owed in accrued pension benefits, Rattner said.

Obama had difficulty with the "notion of writing a check that was about 100 times the annual income of a GM worker to the CEO who had brought the company down."

Obama "grimaced and reluctantly acquiesced," Rattner wrote. "I found it striking that the president of the United States had spent more time on an issue of executive pay than on the question of whether to dismiss a major CEO in the first place."