There’s nothing more all-American than Jeep. Which is interesting, because new ones will soon have “Made in China” stamped firmly on the bottom.
Romney was ripped after he aired an ad saying that under Obama’s administration, Chrysler was sold to “Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China”.
Amanda Peterson Beadle of ThinkProgress refers to the ad as following:
Mitt Romney’s campaign released an ad falsely claiming that Chrysler is shifting Jeep production to China, it made autoworkers fear they would lose their jobs.
Despite its blatant falsehoods, the Romney campaign expanded the ad campaign
It’s the Romney campaign’s ad, however, that is making people think they could lose their jobs. The idea that Jeep plans to get rid of U.S. jobs has been widely panned as a blatant falsehood.
Washington Post’s Politifact gave the ad “Four Pinocchio’s”, even though they covered their butts by saying “[t]he series of statements in the ad individually may be technically correct.”
Hmmm…technically correct you say?
Look at this exchange between CNN’s Candy Crowley and Ohio Senator Rob Portman, and she how she denigrates Sen. Portman:
CROWLEY: The Mitt Romney campaign has put up an ad that has been found by all the fact-checking folks to be false. […] Why not take this one down?
PORTMAN: First of all, the ad is accurate. Bill Clinton was in Pennsylvania yesterday talking about it–
CROWLEY: You’re the only folks who think it’s accurate.
PORTMAN: […] Jeep has said they’re going to reopen a facility that was closed after Daimler-Chrysler broke apart years ago, and it’ll be in China to produce for the Chinese market. That’s all the ad says. There’s nothing inaccurate about it.
The controversy even reached Sergio Marchionne, CEO of the new Fiat-Chrysler himself, who said one week before the election in a letter to employees:
I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China. 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.
My, how things change after the election:
Monday’s edition of The Detroit News reported that Marchionne announced that some models of the Jeep brand would be built in China.
“If you tell me I cannot make a [Jeep] Patriot somewhere else, I might as well go out of the market.”
Romney was right: Chrysler’s new Italian owners will be building Jeeps in China.
So CNN’s Crowley, and Beadle of ThinkProgress, and even Fiat-Chrysler CEO Marchionne were the real Pinocchios.
Pity the truth came out after the election…when it was too late to make a difference.
