Is this the most cynical, dishonest GOP campaign ever?

I can remember plenty of presidential compaigns (all the way back to FDR and Harry Truman), and some of them have gotten pretty ugly, with a lot of false claims and mean attacks.   But I cannot remember one in which the top of the ticket condones and even engages in the utter disregard for the truth -- even when the facts are pointed out to him -- as Romney is doing.  Even Richard Nixon pulled dirty tricks, but didn't just get up in front of people and baldfacedly lie.

As all politicians do, Obama selects his facts, exaggerates, and uses hyperbole.   But he does not outright lie, as Romney does ten times before breakfast.


Leave it to Joe Biden to put it in plain English.   He said Romney's latest ad, claiming that GM and Chrysler were shipping American jobs to China, is "one of the most scurrilous" and "most flagrantly dishonest ads I can remember in my political career."

He said that it calls into question the candidate's character.

But they aren't backing down.   Paul Ryan responded to Biden's words with an artfully designed statement that used innuendo to seemingly support Romney's claim, while blaming it all on Obama.   See, Obama's federal support to keep the American auto industry from collapsing in 2009 is "costing the American taxpayers $25 billion dollars" AND "GM and Chrysler are expanding their production overseas."

That it.  That's how you make a souffle out of cement.    It's true, we put some money into the auto industry (most of it since repaid).  But what would have been the cost in jobs lost and lives ruined if the industry had collapsed?  To say nothing of government support for those who lost their jobs and needed assistance -- everything from unemployment checks to health care to food stamps.

AND they are expanding production overseas.   In order to meeting growing demand for overseas sales of their products.   It will not decrease production in this country, nor ship jobs overseas.  It is simply an expansion of their business over there, not decreasing it over here.    That is a far cry from the "shipping jobs overseas" that Romney's various business holdings have been accused of doing.

Both GM and Chrysler have taken the unusual step in an election of releasing statements refuting Romney's claims.   The GM spokesman even said that Romney has "clearly entered some parallel universe" and that "it represents campaign politics at its cynical worst."

Caught lying, they sent Paul Ryan out to repair the damage.  Ryan doesn't actually lie.  He doesn't actually say -- as the ad does -- that they are shipping jobs overseas.   He says they are expanding their production overseas, which his audience will hear as "sending jobs overseas," even though it technically correct.   Sly . . . but dishonest nevertheless, because it is carefully designed to deceive.

Wake up, people.   Biden is right.  This is a question of character -- and ideology.  I don't mean right-wing/left-wing ideology.   I mean business ideology, where winning and increasing the bottom line profit are all that matter.   But the government is not a business in that sense.

And, ultimately, it is a question of the moral character of the candidate.   Despite his image of moral rectitude, Romney has a rigid code of "I'm right" and "you do it my way."   Just ask the teen age boy that Mitt and his self-righteous cronies held down and forceably cut his hair.   This character flaw developed early and has persisted.

Ralph