Should there be tougher laws against what Politicians say to win elections, if they misrepresent facts? Recently, the chief executive of Chrysler, a U.S. based company came under fire when Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney focused his campaigning in Ohio. His campaign alleged that Jeep, who took federal bailout money, and a product of Chrysler, would be taking jobs away from Americans and shifting production over seas. A fact check on this according to an article in the Voice of America, says this is not completely true.
The chief executive of Chrysler says his company is not shifting production of Jeep vehicles to China. Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said “it is inaccurate to suggest anything different.”
However, Romney did just that when he told an Ohio crowd that he heard reports that Jeep “was thinking of moving all production to China.”
This all started because Jeep’s parent company, Chrysler, stated that it is planning to expand and that its new facilities will be in China. He also stated that although new facilities will be in China, no plans to get rid of current American facilities are underway. So no Americans are likely to lose their jobs. However, Romney’s point seems to be that if they are moving expansions to China, no new American jobs will be created, which makes sense.
It seems that Romney’s campaign still misstated the facts. Should this be allowed? It depends on how one interprets the television ad. But it defiantly seems like it is misleading to the average viewer. What do you think about the dirty games politicians play to make “facts” seem to fit their agendas?
SOURCE: Voice of America
A New York Times article, written by Charles M. Blow, asks similar questions. He ponders what Romney’s “out-and-out lies” and his “uncanny, unflinching willingness to say anything and everything to win this election” says about our country, our values of virtue. I think the suggestion is that we don’t want our politicians, especially those running for President, to mislead the American people so easily. We ought to impose “repercussions.” The only meaningful repercussion here would be to elect the more truthful candidate. Of course, neither candidate is perfect. They both find ways to reframe the truth so as to favor their platform and hurt their opponent’s. It does seem, though, that Governor Romney has repeatedly made false statements, particularly about the American auto-industry, many of which are provoking critical responses from the auto companies themselves. In addition to the incorrect statements that Romney made about Jeep and its parent company Chrysler, he has also erroneously claimed that “under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they are planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China.” GM quickly rebutted Romney’s misstatements, as did Factcheck.org, explaining that when GM went bankrupt in 2009 it was forced to eliminate some of its older brands and pull out from certain dealerships. While this resulted in fewer jobs, that alternative was to go out of business entirely. GM’s extinction clearly would have caused greater devastation than what actually occurred. And while nobody denies that jobs were lost and people suffered and continue to suffer, Romney simply cannot continue misstating the facts. The result is a misinformed American public which is neither what we should be nor what we strive to be.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/liberty-to-lie/