WASHINGTON POST: Chrysler, one of the three pillars of the American auto industry, will file for bankruptcy after last-minute negotiations between the government and the automaker’s creditors broke down last night. U.S. officials had offered Chrysler’s secured lenders $2.25 billion in cash if they would agree to writedown the $6.9 billion in secured debt that the company owed. But a small group of hedge funds refused the 11th-hour deal, forcing an imminent bankruptcy. An administration official this morning expressed disappointment, saying the holdouts had failed to “do the right thing,” but that “their failure to act in either their own economic interest or the national interest does not diminish the accomplishments made by Chrysler, Fiat and its stakeholders, nor will it impede the new opportunity Chrysler now has to restructure and emerge stronger going forward.” […] As talks broke down late last night, it became near certain that the Obama administration would send Chrysler into bankruptcy under a plan that would replace chief executive Robert L. Nardelli and pump billions of dollars more into the effort, all in hopes that the company could emerge from court proceedings as a re-energized competitor in the global economy. MORE