A half-hour into the meeting, an aide entered the Oval Office and slipped Mr. Obama a note informing him another meeting was to begin. The president told advisers he needed more time to decide Chrysler’s fate. He then headed off for a day consumed by a new strategy for Afghanistan, a threatened rocket launch by North Korea and the evacuation of a flooded Fargo, N.D. (“What is this, a ‘West Wing’ episode?” Mr. Axelrod recalled asking Mr. Emanuel.)