The Latest Lie: Romney Doubles Down On Friday's Lie

Mitt Romney told a lie Friday, scaring Ohio's Jeep workers with a claim that Jeep is shutting down US manufacturing and moving it to China. Now he is doubling down on this lie with a new ad. He is calculating that the lies will scare enough poorly-informed people to vote his way, never mind the truth. And we could see a president elected based on just lying.

The Original Lie

In Friday's post, The Latest Lie: "Jeep Moving All Production To China" (Plus #Sensata) [1],

The things Mitt Romney says can just astonish you. Romney shows a wondrous perfection of the ability to smile and just say whatever needs to be said at the moment to make the sale.

This time he tries to scare Ohioans by saying Jeep is leaving the country and taking all its jobs with it (when it is really expanding into other countries) and then promises to "fight for every American job." He says this even as Bain Capital's Sensata [2] is closing their factory here and sending all its jobs to China -- adding even more money to Romney's huge fortune [3].

The New Romney Ad

Here is the new Romney ad:

Here are a few responses:

Sam Stein at Huffington Post, Mitt Romney Releases Auto Ad That Misleads On Facts [4],

Where the ad goes from misleading to something more nefarious is in the text it shows. At one point, it displays a line from a Bloomberg story stating that Chrysler "plans to return Jeep output to China," the implication being that the company is moving operations there as opposed to expanding operations that are already there. Romney has cited this report on several occasions while campaigning and has been summarily criticized for doing so. Chrysler has denied the report, and multiple news outlets have called out the Romney campaign for using it in on the stump.

UAW: UAW: Romney doubles down on Jeep lie [5],

Even after Chrysler Corp.'s Gualberto Ranieri, vice president of communications, said Friday, “Let's set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China,” the Romney campaign put out a false and misleading ad basically repeating his bogus statement made Thursday in Ohio that Chrysler was moving all Jeep production to China.

Travis Waldron at Think Progress, Romney Auto Bailout Ad Tells Four Myths In 30 Seconds [6],

As Mitt Romney continues to struggle to explain his various positions on the auto rescue that saved General Motors and Chrysler, his presidential campaign has released an ad about the bailout that is littered with falsehoods and misdirections.

Keith Laing at The Hill, Chrysler: Romney is wrong, Jeep not leaving US for China [7],

Chrysler is not moving Jeep production from Ohio to China despite claims by Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, the auto company said.

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, Mitt Romney Gets Desperate in Ohio [8],

On this scale, Romney's ad rates about 9 out of 10 on the deceptiveness scale. He's obviously trying to imply that American jobs will be shipped overseas; stating things accurately would require wholesale revisions; and doing so would completely destroy Romney's point. But he doesn't care. He's got an election to win, and if scaring Ohio autoworkers is what it takes, then that's what it takes. It's truly nauseating.

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic, A Desperate, Deceptive Gambit for Romney in Ohio [9],

Of course, this kind of deception is emblematic of the campaign Romney and his supporters have waged in the last few days [10]. They insist that Romney never thought government should let Chrysler and GM collapse.

If we elect a president based on a campaign of flat-out lies, deception and misdirection what kind of country will we have as a result?

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