Another day, another Mitt Romney lie involving China. Granted, this lie was told last Thursday at a rally in Defiance, Ohio — “I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state Jeep — now owned by the Italians — is thinking of moving all production to China” – and it’s a lie that mostly slanders Chrysler, Barack Obama, Italy, the US auto industry, and common sense, but we think it should be brought to your attention anyway in preparation for the next five days of Romney lies and the inevitable mention of Obama’s half-brother in Guangzhou, Mark Ndesandjo, as evidence that the president loves him some Commie Red.
Ed Schultz of MSNBC’s The Ed Show already took down Romney last week (video above), but Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, decided to do it again in an email to employees yesterday — in case, you know, you maintained the illusion that Romney was credible:
I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.
North American production is critical to achieving our goal of selling 800,000 Jeep vehicles by 2014. In fact, U.S. production of our Jeep models has nearly tripled (it is expected to be up 185%) since 2009 in order to keep up with global demand.
That is not to say, of course, that Jeep isn’t going to China. On the contrary, the company is doing so well that it is expanding operations overseas:
Together, we are working to establish a global enterprise and previously announced our intent to return Jeep production to China, the world’s largest auto market, in order to satisfy local market demand, which would not otherwise be accessible. Chrysler Group is interested in expanding the customer base for our award-winning Jeep vehicles, which can only be done by establishing local production. This will ultimately help bolster the Jeep brand, and solidify the resilience of U.S. jobs.
So not only has Romney lied about Chrysler’s plans, he has painted the exact inverse picture of Chrysler’s state of health. This, my friends, isn’t your run-of-the-mill political lying, which is often characterized by a bending of facts. This isn’t a willful ignoring of inconvenient truths, either. This is seeing X and calling it FQICPAJ. It is — pardon the analogy — a Chinese rural village cadre’s kind of lying, a clean fracture from reality in order to push a personal agenda. We’ve seen Romney do it time and again; please, no more. No more after Tuesday.
