There were economic reasons for closing dealerships; I recall seeing posts a few months ago that stated GM & Chysler had too many dealerships, but had entangled contractual commitments that made terminating the dealerships legally problematic short of a bankruptcy re-structuring. So the idea of terminating some dealership arrangements is not per se a bad idea.
The problem is that once GM & Chrylser became Government Motors and 0bama Motors, the termination of dealers is no longer an economic decision, it’s a political one. And this is per se a bad idea.
But I thought dealerships cost GM and Chrysler nothing. They buy the cars and sell them at their own risk. So closing these dealerships doesn’t help their respective companies. It just hurts the dealerships and helps whomever Obama decides to reward a dealership.