Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I have posted on this topic several times over the years. For example, see Post Truth Politics: Lies Are Now The Truth, from August.
Norm Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, said yesterday: “I think there’s nobody like Romney. Romney is like
the Michael Phelps of presidential candidates. if you’re looking for
gold medals in terms of audacious lying, and adamant refusal to turn
over personal information, nobody comes close. I’m sure others would’ve
liked to have done it, but the culture in the past was one where lying
attracted some level of approbation and shame.”
This would require the media to call him out for his lies and to hold Romney up to public shame. This is known as "name it and shame it," a tactic used with great success during the Civil Rights Movement.
Now that we have a closed-loop alternate reality conservative media structure in this country, the efficacy of "name it and shame it" is in serious doubt. The mighty Wurlitzer of the right-wing noise machine knows no shame, and has no conscience — it will say anything to win at all costs.
Romney is their perfect candidate, the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar who will say anything to win at all costs, as I have posted about in numerous fact checks by Steve Benen and others. Romney's "closing argument" in Ohio on the auto rescue encapsulates this new era of post truth politics in which shameless lying is fast becoming the norm.
'Greg Sargent writes today at The Plum Line:
[I]t’s worth taking a look at how the battle over Mitt Romney’s latest
falsehood — that the auto bailout will result in American Jeep jobs
getting shipped to China — is playing in the Ohio media, since this
claim represents Romney’s last chance to turn things around in the
state.
Here’s the headline in today’s Toledo Blade:
Clinton, Biden call Jeep ad deceptive
Another in the Toledo Blade:
Obama campaign accuses Romney of dishonesty on Jeep issue
The Blade has been covering this story pretty aggressively, noting
that Romney — who now claims Obama followed his approach on the
auto-bailout — previously derided the rescue effort as “crony
capitalism.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, meanwhile, published a scorching editorial with this headline:
Flailing in Ohio, Romney rolls out Jeep ploy
The editorial flatly noted that Romney is now trying to sow
“confusion” among Ohioans, to obscure his opposition to a policy that
has helped save an industry linked to one in eight Ohio jobs. “It won’t
work,” it concluded. “Ohio voters know who stepped up when the auto
industry was at the abyss — and it wasn’t Romney.”
And the Columbus Dispatch has been running with headlines like: “Jeep/Romney question lingers.” The Dispatch extensively fact-checked
Romney’s claims about the auto-bailout, clearly demonstrating that he
did in fact oppose the rescue of the industry Obama ended up pursuing.
This is hardly a comprehensive look at the local coverage, but it
does suggest the possibility that Romney’s Jeep-to-China gamble may be
backfiring. Polls have shown that large numbers of Ohioans don’t think
Romney cares about their needs and problems. And the Obama campaign views the auto bailout, and Romney’s dishonesty about it, as central to their closing case against Romney’s character, integrity, and true priorities. So these are exactly the headlines the Obama team wants.
So has Romney been shamed by all of this negative media coverage of his "big lie" GOPropaganda about the auto rescue? Not in the least. In fact, Romney expands false Jeep-to-China ad campaign:
Mitt Romney’s new television ad suggesting that the auto bailout will result in American jeep jobs getting shipped to China has been widely pilloried by news organizations, both nationally and in Ohio. The Romney campaign’s response: It is expanding the ad campaign.
* * *
The move seems to confirm that the Romney campaign is making the
Jeep-to-China falsehood central to its final push to turn things around
in the state. The Romney campaign has explicitly said in the past
that it will not let fact checking constrain its messaging, so perhaps
it’s not surprising that it appears to be expanding an ad campaign
based on a claim that has been widely pilloried by fact checkers.
The move represents a gamble on Romney’s part. The audacity of this
falsehood makes it easier for the Obama camp to raise doubts about
Romney’s character, integrity, and honesty — and to make the case that
Romney not only failed to support the bailout when Ohio needed it; he’s
now lying extensively to cover it up. Yesterday in Ohio, Joe Biden
slammed the Romney camp by saying: “Have they no shame?”
Sorry, Joe, but no.
As Steve Benen put it,
this episode demonstrates more clearly than any other yet that Romney
“believes we’ve entered a post-truth era and the disincentive has
disappeared — he can repeat falsehoods with impunity without fear of
consequences.”
This pernicious "Big Lie" GOPropaganda campaign is a direct threat to the survival of our democracy. Romney's lack of character and shameless lying should be disqualifying, he should be rejected by voters in revulsion to his shameless lying in an electoral landslide. Those voters who vote to reward Romney's shameless lying are consigning America's future to the dystopian world envisioned by George Orwell in "1984."
UPDATE: Fiat chief executive Sergio Marchionne has now felt compelled by
Romney’s disinformation campaign to set the record straight a second
time. In an email to shareholders,
he confirmed: “I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position:
Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.”
Marchionne added: “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in
the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is
inaccurate to suggest anything different.”
UPDATE: General Motors did the same thing.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has broadened his
attack on President Barack Obama's auto industry restructuring, implying
that General Motors used the aid to hire more workers in China than in
the U.S. […]"We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few
days," GM spokesman Greg Martin said. "No amount of campaign politics at
its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S.
and repatriating profits back to this country."