May 18, 2012 06:15 PM UTC

A True "Both Ways Bob" Moment For Mitt Romney

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• by: Colorado Pols

As ably retold by the Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler:

“We were able to help create over 100,000 jobs. On the president’s watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry and auto dealers and auto manufacturers, so he’s hardly one to point a finger.”

– Mitt Romney, interview on Hot Air, May 16, 2011

The 100,000 jobs is back! The presumptive GOP nominee all but stopped mentioning he created 100,000 in the private sector after we declared in January that claim was untenable and unproven. The biggest problem is that Romney is counting all the jobs added by companies long after he had left the leadership of Bain Capital – and even after Bain’s investment in the companies had ended.

In the Hot Air interview, Romney even made this claim while at the same time arguing that a recent Obama campaign commercial slamming the job losses at a particular Bain investment was unfair because “the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there, so that’s hardly something which is on my watch.”  (Technically, Romney had not completely extricated himself from Bain but that’s another story.)

The logic there escapes us. Romney appears to be saying it is okay to count jobs created after he left Bain, but it’s not okay to count jobs lost after he left Bain… [Pols emphasis]

You’ll recall that the main defense from Mitt Romney’s campaign against the Obama camp’s GST Steel ads this week was Romney had “left” Bain Capital by the time that Kansas City plant was closed–kind of problematic if Romney is taking credit for jobs created by Bain Capital investments after he left too! As for the claim that Barack Obama presided over the loss of “100,000 jobs in the auto industry,” according to Kessler, it “does not add up.”

Yes, there were some painful cuts in the auto industry at the start of Obama’s presidency, largely because tough choices had to be made. One could argue whether those choices were necessary or effective, but the bottom line is clear: No matter how you slice it, jobs overall have grown substantially in the auto industry under Obama. In fact, it is one of the bright spots of today’s economy.

In summary, Kessler gave this latest excursion into factually-challenged territory from Romney the maximum “Four Pinocchios” on their rating scale, but for local readers who have been with us long enough to remember, a picture is truly worth a thousand words (above, right).

Neither Romney nor “Both Ways Bob” Beapurez were harmed in the making of this picture.