The campaign's defense: The ad is literally true, whatever its implications. "What's in there that's false? Are they building Jeeps in China or not?" an aide asked BuzzFeed, breaking the campaign's silence on the ad.

[President Obama] sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.

The Romney campaign defends its new ad pushing his false claim that Jeep plans to move all of its production to China:I'm sure they're not actually interested in an answer, but here's what's dishonest about the ad: it accuses President Obama of working with Italians to ship American jobs to China. The two key lines from the ad:The truth is that Chrysler isn't moving any Jeep production from America to China. In fact, Chrysler is actually increasing Jeep production in the United States. This week, for example, the company is adding 1,100 workers to its Jeep assembly line in Michigan. None of that production is going to move to China. Instead, the company is exploring producing Jeeps in China to sell in China, just like Toyota and Honda build cars in North America for sale here.

The fact that Mitt Romney's campaign is arguing that his ad is consistent with those facts is at least as dishonest as the ad itself. But Mitt Romney isn't concerned about telling the truth or protecting American jobs. If he were, he'd be doing something about Sensata. And he would have would have supported President Obama's auto rescue plan—but he didn't.

As Greg Sargent points out, this is all about Romney trying to escape the trap he set for himself by placing the wrong bet on the auto bailout. Romney said Obama's plan would destroy the American auto industry, but the reality is that if he'd gotten his way, Chrysler wouldn't be here today. No matter how many times Romney attempts to rewrite history, no amount of deceptive advertising can change the simple fact that he was wrong. The only thing Romney can do is tell lies and hope that he gets away with it. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be working.

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