Everyone seems shocked that President Obama would dare send the CEO of General Motors Corp. a pink slip.

After nearly a decade of bad management that led to the fall of one of the biggest corporations in the United States, GM’s head cheese Rick Wagoner got the boot. Obviously the members of GM’s own board weren’t going to show the guy the door. Wagoner was the chairman of the board for god’s sake.

Michigan’s Governor, Jennifer Granholm, actually called Wagoner a “sacrificial lamb” on the Today Show this morning.

Hello Governor! This is the meaning of sacrificial lamb:

sacrificial lamb (sacrificial lambs plural ) If you refer to someone as a sacrificial lamb, you mean that they have been blamed unfairly for something they did not do, usually in order to protect another more powerful person or group. n-count (=scapegoat)

As far as I could tell, the CEO and Chairman of a company is the most powerful person at a company.

And a Wall Street Journal story today actually blames the workers for Wagoner’s failures:

Mr. Wagoner’s tenure came amidst extraordinary challenges that weren’t entirely of his own making — including costly retiree benefits and union contracts that predate him and the recent deep recession.

This perception, that it was the money and benefits autoworkers have enjoyed that killed GM is pervasive in this country. It’s a convenient excuse for the failing of the nation’s auto sector, but folks, these middle-class employees have worked long and hard for what they get. I fear many are being duped in this country into taking their anger out on the wrong people.

CEOs in the auto industry, the banking industry, and on Wall Street, have led our nation’s corporations into the dire straits we find ourselves in now. You would think these leaders would be the first to get pink slips, not the poor, sucker workers that had nothing to do with the mess.

Where was all the shock and outrage when President Ronald Reagan decided to fire more than 10,000 air traffic controllers who were on strike in 1981? He also banned the controllers for life from the profession; something that President Bill Clinton reversed years later. Many of those individuals were never able to return to the job they love, and many ended up suffering economic hardships.

I’m going to guess GM’s Wagoner has a pretty sweet golden parachute, more than $30 million, according to initial reports; something I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot about in the days ahead.