Lies that Boomerang

Last week, Mitt Romney said that "he read" somewhere that Jeep was going to send all of its Ohio jobs to China. Chrysler officials politely pointed out this was completely not the case. Then Romney launched an ad that repeats the same canard, only extending the warning to include GM. Corporate officials usually do not jump into partisan fights. After all, both Democrats and republicans buy cars. But, Romney's brazen lie required a response.

“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.”

Voters know that campaigns distort their own and each others' records as a matter of course. But, when a distortion ropes in a third party, a party which can independently verify or refute the claim made, you are skating on very dangerous ice and voters are going to notice. The ice is cracking. The Romney camp has once more shown its incompetence. The final week of the campaign, in Ohio, is focused on two things that can only help Obama: the auto bailout and Romney's penchant for fibbing.