The news that Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli would be stepping down following the government's decision to force the automaker into bankruptcy should not come as a surprise.

And it marks the second time Nardelli has left a corporation under the cloud of failure.

The former General Electric executive was hired to takeover Home Depot in 2000 but was subsequently forced out by its board due in part to his tendency "to ram through his ideas," as BusinessWeek delicately put it in a recent article.

He left with a controversial $210 million severance package.

Secretive financier Stephen Feinberg pulled him in to run Chrysler in 2007; the auto maker is part of Feinberg's private Cerberus Capital Management empire.

However, his tenure has been marked by an inability to get concessions from unions and cutbacks in both white collar workers and future development.

Indeed, when fuel prices doubled last summer, Chrysler was stranded with barely a small car on its lots.

Meanwhile it's a fair bet that the severance package Nardelli - who has been raking in a symbolic $1 salary - gets from Cereberus will be kept under wraps!

- Peter C.T. Elsworth