ANN ARBOR, Michigan — The headline in Monday morning's Wall Street Journal proclaimed: 'Outside Pressure Grows for GM To Oust Wagoner.' It didn't take long for General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz to come to the aid of his boss, complaining on that such a move is 'in the category of a sacrificial lamb or some sort of sacrifice to the gods.'According to widespread media reports, Wagoner may be forced to resign from his post as part of a broad bailout of GM by the federal government. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, suggested on Sunday in an appearance on the CBS show 'Face the Nation' that Wagoner should go if the government provides billions of dollars to help the automaker. He continued the drumbeat on Monday, telling ABC's 'Good Morning America' that 'it's not my job to hire and fire, but what I'm trying to suggest is that you need to have new teams in place.'President-elect Barack Obama issued his own opinion on tough love for Detroit on Sunday, but without naming specific auto executives. Obama suggested that the heads of the automakers should go if they proved unwilling to make tough choices needed to change their operations to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.GM spokesman Tony Cervone, in an e-mail to Inside Line on Monday, said: 'While we appreciate Senator Dodd's efforts on behalf of the U.S. auto industry, the employees of General Motors, its dealers, its suppliers and the GM Board of Directors all strongly support Rick Wagoner, the leadership he has provided in beginning the transformation of GM over the last several years and his commitment to accelerate that transformation going forward. We are confident he is the person to lead GM through these challenging and difficult times.'In the lengthy interview on CNBC, Lutz likened Wagoner's situation to 'blaming the mayor of a city that has been hit by an earthquake.''He is the best CEO I've ever worked for,' Lutz said. 'He has made enormous transformations at GM.' Among his accomplishments, according to the vice chairman, was 'he hired a 70-year-old' and allowed 'me to re-emphasize design.' He also paraphrased Lee Iacocca's famous quote about cars, saying 'If you can find a better leadership team, by all means hire it.'Lutz also criticized lawmakers' treatment of the Big Three bosses during recent testimony on Capitol Hill, saying viewers didn't see 'public humiliation of people in the financial sector' when they asked the government for financial aid.Congress and the White House are working this week to finish a plan to save Detroit's Big Three that would involve at least $15 billion in short-term loans. Lutz described the situation in dire terms, saying ' we have is a collapse of the total automotive market.... We have an extremely urgent need for this money.'The GM vice chairman said 'a lot of this has been grotesquely misrepresented in the media.' Regarding a possible merger between Chrysler and GM, Lutz said: 'I don't think anybody should force anybody to do anything.' But he added that some consolidation among the domestic manufacturers may be 'reasonable and beneficial.'Inside Line says: This is shaping up as the week of reckoning for the Detroit Three and the men who run them. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent