海角大神

Over the weekend, Romney debuted an ad in Ohio聽showing cars being crushed as a narrator says Obama 鈥渟辞濒诲 Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.鈥�

In fact, Chrysler is retaining and expanding its Jeep production in North America, including in Ohio. Its profits have enabled it to separately consider expanding into China, the world鈥檚 largest auto market.

Responding to the ad, Chrysler emphasized in a blog post that it has 鈥渘o intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.鈥澛�

鈥淭hey are inviting a false inference,鈥� says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on political advertising.

This is only the most recent in a stream of lies from Romney. Remember his contention that the President planned to 鈥渞ob鈥� Medicare of $716 billion when in fact the money would come from reduced payments to providers who were overcharging 鈥� thereby extending the life of Medicare? (Ryan鈥檚 plan includes the same $716 billion of savings but gets it from turning Medicare into a voucher and shifting rising health-care costs on to seniors.)

Remember聽Romney鈥檚 claim that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law, when in fact Obama merely allowed governors to fashion harder or broader work requirements?聽聽

Recall Romney鈥檚 assertion that he is not planning to give the rich a tax cut of almost $5 trillion, when in fact that鈥檚 exactly what his budget plan does? Or that his budget will reduce the long-term budget deficit, when in fact his numbers don鈥檛 add up?聽

And so on.聽鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,鈥� says聽, a Romney pollster. It is not even being dictated by facts.

There are two lessons here. First, lies financed by deep pockets are hard to refute, but they must be refuted. Otherwise, there is no accountability in our democracy. So far, the American media have not adequately refuted Romney鈥檚 lies. They seem to believe that dissembling is permissible, or that pointing out this extraordinary lying machine is itself an act of partisanship.

Second, anyone who tells or countenances such lies cannot be trusted to hold the highest office in our land, because he has no compunctions about feeding false information to the public. In recent memory we鈥檝e had a president who told us there were 鈥渨eapons of mass destruction鈥� in Iraq, when in fact there were none. We dare not risk another George W. Bush.