You'd expect that whoever was tasked with running the new government-aided General Motors would be gifted in adapting to new business models and innovation, given the lack of which was a major reason for the automaker's implosion. So it comes as a surreal shock to many to see that GM's new boss will be former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre. Sure, Whitacre ran a tough ship at AT&T -- but he was also stubborn and anything but innovative. Whitacre was also single-handedly responsible for starting the network neutrality wars by making some confused comments in 2005 about how Google wasn't going to get to use Ed's "pipes" for free.

Ed's belief was that content companies should subsidize phone company network builds -- when such companies already pay for and own their own bandwidth. Despite the fact it highlighted a huge misunderstanding of the way the Internet works, Whitacre's bizarre sense of entitlement settled into the bones of AT&T corporate "telco think" and became an oft-repeated talking point.

While Whitacre did help diversify AT&T and steel AT&T's monopoly power in many markets through top tier lobbying -- the carrier remains an old-school establishment that can't take risks and is slow to adapt. The biggest example is Ed's decision to placate his investors and milk copper, instead of taking the company's ample resources and investing in fiber to the home technology. As a result, AT&T's going to be playing catch up for years.

Are we seeing any parallels to GM yet?

"Seems that a man who comes from an industry that put the NO into the word 'innovation' has a chance to set his mark once again, this time in Detroit," VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver says to Alex Goldman at Internet News. "Whitacre is an ideal choice for GM," Jim Pickrell, who sued AT&T in the infamous "Brand X" case, tells Goldman. "Under his leadership, AT&T has been able to get regulators to regulate his competition out of business."

While there's little doubt he'll keep a tight budget, it's not clear that Whitacre has any automotive experience, nor is it clear that a government-pampered, lumbering monopoly with a poor history of listening to customers is the kind of model the "new" GM should be emulating. Ed's starting his tenure off at GM on an interesting foot, by admitting this week in an interview that he doesn't actually know anything about cars. All Ed knows, to steal a line from consumer advocate Art Brodsky on Twitter, is that he ain't going to let you use his roads for free.