Romney trips over his own tongue...surprise, surprise

It seems that Mitt has stepped in it again.

I should be used to this by now.

Last night Romney made a campaign appearance in  Defiance, Ohio. (Nothing unusual about that; he's been spending most of his time in Ohio this week. He needs Ohio, and he's behind in Ohio.) While speaking he said something that he obviously thought would sway more Ohio voters to his side; something that turned out to be completely untrue. (Why am I not surprised?)

Here's what he said, a direct quote:

"I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is now thinking of moving all production to China."

A bombshell, a shocking story that would frighten and anger Ohio workers...if it were true.

It wasn't true.

Here's what seems to have happened. Mitt seems to have gotten his information off a right-wing blog that seems to have gotten a false impression from a Bloomberg headline. That's it...just the headline. Or maybe he misread the Bloomberg article himself, without being referred to it by the blog. Either way, either Mitt or one of his people doesn't seemed to have bothered to read past the first line of the article (which line was, in all fairness, badly worded and misleading).

(Don't take my word for it; read it for yourself. If you don't read past the first sentence, you could get the wrong idea too.)

In any case, someone in the Romney campaign (Romney himself or not, the buck has to stop on the bosses' desk) screwed up, and quoted information that was bogus. I'm willing to give Mitt the benefit of the doubt and grant that he probably did not know he was spewing hokum. That doesn't let him off the hook for not knowing he was spewing hokum. Nor can he be forgiven for spewing hokum.

In short, he was spewing hokum.

Just to put the record straight, Chrysler is thinking about manufacturing Jeeps in China, but for the Chinese market. Jeeps for the US market will still be US built. Mitt wrongly stated that Jeep was thinking about moving all production to China; there was absolutely no support for this. Chrysler is apparently doing well enough to consider expanding its manufacturing base to more effectively cover emerging foreign markets. That's what they call "globalization."

Sounds like that auto-bailout thing is working, doesn't it?

(I have to admit that I was skeptical about the whole bailout thing, and said so back in '08.  I also have to admit that I was way wrong.)

(I should point out that I initially heard about this on The Rachel Maddow Show; I subsequently did a bit of web surfing to confirm what I'd heard. If you doubt anything I've said, try doing a Google search on "romney jeep china" and see what you come up with.)

Romney is so bloody bad at putting his foot in his mouth it's a wonder he doesn't have athlete's tongue. (Didn't I say that about John McCain once?) This is just another example. Romney doesn't need this. He's in the last two weeks of a close race, and he needs Ohio very badly. That he would make such an obvious misstep in Ohio, and one so easily avoided, is mystifying.

Someone wake up Mitt, and tell him that his slip is showing.

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.