Monday night’s debate between President Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney was about foreign policy. But one of the sharpest exchanges was over President Obama’s rescue of General Motors and Chrysler—and whether Romney had opposed it. Romney said he had not.

That’s a distortion, at best, or a flat-out lie, at worst. It’s impossible to know for sure because Romney has made different and, at times, contradictory statements about the issue.

I hope to have more to say about the auto industry rescue later. But, for now, here’s what Romney said on Monday evening during the debate:

I said they need—these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy. And in that process, they can get government help and government guarantees, but they need to go through bankruptcy to get rid of excess cost and the debt burden that they’d—they’d built up.

Obama challenged him at that point, suggesting Romney had not called for providing government assistance. Romney disagreed.

You can take a look at the op-ed... I said that we would provide guarantees, and—and that was what was able to allow these companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. Under no circumstances would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry, of course not. Of course not

“The op-ed” that Romney mentioned was a column that appeared in the New York Times in late 2008. And it’s been the source of considerable confusion, because the article itself was more nuanced than the headline, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” (For that reason, I actually criticized the Obama campaign for using the headline in an early advertisement.) As Romney has correctly pointed out, he never said he wanted the companies to go through liquidation. He said he wanted a “managed bankruptcy” in which the companies reorganized their operations, downsizing but continuing to operate—ideally, in a leaner, more profitable form.