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Mitt Romney's political director, Rich Beeson, on Sunday suggested that The New York Times -- and not the Republican presidential nominee -- was responsible for an op-ed calling for the U.S. auto industry to "go bankrupt."

During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Beeson why the Romney campaign was running a "misleading" advertisement which implied that Jeep is sending U.S. jobs overseas when, in fact, the company is adding American jobs.

"I found it interesting that President Obama would attack Gov. Romney on that when they put up an ad saying that Gov. Romney says, 'Let Detroit go bankrupt,' when that's a headline from a New York Times op-ed," Beeson replied.

While it's true that The New York Times selected the title "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" for Romney's 2008 op-ed, the former Massachusetts governor was reportedly given an opportunity to approve the headline.

Romney also personally repeated the line during a television interview earlier this year.

"Yeah, that's what I said," he told CBS News. "The headline you just read, 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,' points out that the companies needed to go through bankruptcy to save those costs."

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Here we go again with Willard telling about his thousandth or so lie out on the campaign trail, but this time we find out that apparently badly sourced right wing blogs are his fact checking department. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Romney repeats false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China; Chrysler refutes story:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney repeated a false claim Thursday night that Chrysler Group may move all Jeep vehicle production to China, drawing criticism from the Obama campaign, which said the Michigan native had blatantly skewed a news wire story.

Romney’s comments came the same day that the Free Press reported that 1,100 new Chrysler workers will begin making the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango SUVs at a plant in Detroit next week.

“I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China,” Romney said during a rally in Defiance, Ohio, before 12,000 cheering supporters, according to several reports. “I will fight for every good job in America, I’m going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it’s fair, America will win.

Romney apparently was referencing conservative bloggers who misrepresented a Bloomberg story from Monday that discussed Chrysler’s decision to consider starting Jeep production in China, the world’s largest new-vehicle market.

That story, while accurate, sparked a raft of other stories and blogs that incorrectly concluded that Chrysler might close plants or move Jeep production from the U.S. to China.

Gualberto Ranieri, Chrysler’s vice president of communications, criticized those stories Thursday even before Romney made his comments.

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From this Thursday evening's Democratic National Convention, this is what you call a barn-burner folks. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm brought down the house with her passionate speech thanking President Obama for saving the auto industry when no one else was willing to come in and rescue them, including Bain Capital, and took it to Mitt Romney for famously saying to "let Detroit go bankrupt."

Full text of former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's speech at Democratic National Convention:

Good evening, I'm Jennifer Granholm, from the great state of Michigan, where the trees are just the right height! Let me tell you a story about the dark days in my home state. Towards the end of my time as governor, Ford closed one of its biggest factories, a factory in Wixom, Michigan. The Wixom plant had employed thousands of middle-class men and women in neighborhoods near—yet worlds away from—the place Mitt Romney was raised.

When Ford's decision hit, I went down to the local union hall. It was almost empty; a few workers milled about in shock and grief. I talked to a 45-year-old guy who told me, "This is the only place I've ever worked.

I've been loyal. I've done everything they've ever asked. And just like that, it's gone." He looked around the hall and said, "So, governor, is it over for us? Is the American auto industry dead?" Honestly, at that moment, I just didn't know. And that was just the beginning. When the financial crisis hit, things got a lot worse – and fast.

The entire auto industry, and the lives of over one million hard-working Americans, teetered on the edge of collapse; and with it, the whole manufacturing sector. We looked everywhere for help. Almost nobody had the guts to help us – not the banks, not the private investors and not Bain capital. Then, in 2009, the cavalry arrived: our new president, Barack Obama!

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Jason Linkins in his weekly Sunday Talking Heads live blog, did a nice job of summing this portion of Ed Gillespie's appearance on Fox News Sunday up, where Gillespie was trying to explain Mitt Romney's opinion on the bailout of the auto industry:

Wallace moves to Romney's opposition to the auto industry rescue. Again, Wallace has done his homework, pointing out that the current Republican governor of Michigan supported the rescue and has pointed out that Romney's weird explanation for how it came to be that he simultaneously opposed and supported this rescue does not make sense -- Rommey says he wanted a "managed bankruptcy" and has insisted from time to time that what Obama did was not a managed bankruptcy, only to say on alternate weeks that it was a "managed bankruptcy" and that Romney will "take a lot of credit for it."

There's only one salient difference between Romney and Obama's position -- Romney seems to think that private money should have been used and was available to manage the bankruptcy. The White House position was that private money would have OBVIOUSLY been preferable, but there was, as you could imagine, nobody who was particularly hot to pony up the scratch. So the federal government did, after the executives successfully jumped through a bunch of hoops. If we're being honest here, Romney played his hand back when it was still uncertain that the auto rescue would work, his gamble didn't pay off, and now he's having to spit a bunch of circuitous garbage about it to keep from simply admitting he was wrong.

It seems to me that he'd actually be better off if he just conceded the Detroit bailout to Obama, like Michigan's governor has, and just move to another point of critique. But in for a penny, I guess?

Gillespie doesn't have much of an answer, except to say that there was a debate and many people had different point of view. Gillespie says that a managed bankruptcy was Romney's idea. Wallace says, sure, but not with public money. Gillespie says that it's still a managed bankruptcy. Wallace counters, saying that doing it Romney's way would have actually led to a Chapter 7 liquidation. And around and around. "I understand that is an opinion," Gillespie says. He says that Romney's "belief" is that a private bailout would have been better. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

Gillespie eventually gets around to being slightly more honest -- Romney believes that the bondholders who made terrible investments in these companies should have been bailed out ahead of the middle class people who built the cars. That's really the only worthwhile thing to remember from this discussion.

Transcript via Fox below the fold.

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For the first time in four years, the Detroit Grand Prix is being run this weekend in Detroit, Michigan. It's a 2.1 mile race on Detroit city streets, and was just red-flagged by race officials because chunks of the asphault were flying out of cracks in the streets, putting drivers, teams and spectators in danger as a result of flying debris and brand-new potholes in the pavement.

City workers are working frantically as I write to patch the holes with epoxy and cure them with oversize hair dryers so they can restart the race.

I was recently in Detroit and loved the city. I found myself rooting for it to overcome all of the current economic challenges and be the phoenix rising from the ashes of the 2008 meltdown. Perhaps it could have been if Governor Rick Snyder had paid attention to infrastructure issues before he spent so much time union-busting and hitting hard on poor people and teachers. He might have a track worthy of this race instead of the possibility of being made a laughingstock.

In early 2011, Governor Snyder took hard aim at unions and unemployed people in his state. In classic conservative style, he took aim at seniors' pensions while sneaking in tax cuts for rich folks and corporations. And let's not forget that Detroit was one of his prime targets for takeover by the state in order to break the unions.

In late October, 2011, he rolled out a proposal for infrastructure improvements, a welcome change from his usual focus at hammering poor and elderly people. Of course, it's all in the name of promoting business interests in Michigan, but Governor Snyder hasn't been able to get to first base with his teabagger legislature on appropriations to improve infrastructure. I suppose it goes without saying that Congress is no help at all either, given their fetish with holding infrastructure bills hostage to bills attacking women's health.

So today, Indy Car returns to Detroit for the first time in four years. Whether you're a racing fan or not, these events promote tourism, bring revenues to the city, and build goodwill. That is, unless your streets fall apart mid-race. Then they serve to humiliate city governments, citizens, and make the United States look worse than the streets of Bahrain.

Way to go there, Republicans. True patriots you are. Not.

Update: The race will restart at 3:45 pm for 15 more laps, cutting it down from the 30 which were remaining. This is a tough track to race as it is, because it's very narrow and passing is difficult. Between the road problems and the passing issues, I expect drivers to err on the side of caution for the last few laps, which means it won't be much of a race.

The more I think about this the angrier I get.

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Vice President Joe Biden was out on the campaign trail this week in Ohio, and on the attack over Mitt Romney's record as a so-called "job creator" and a businessman who "knows how to create jobs" and get our economy moving again. Fox's Neil Cavuto brought on his former fellow Fox contributor turned Ohio Governor John Kasich to respond.

Kasich of course tried to downplay the credit the Obama administration was attempting to take for Ohio's economy improving and their unemployment rate falling below the national average, and instead credited himself for making Ohio a more business friendly state and making the same points we've been hearing from Republicans ad nauseum on what Paul Krugman has rightfully called "the confidence fairy." Forget the fact that what drives businesses to make investments and grow their companies are consumers and whether the general public has enough disposable income to afford their products. Kasich wants you to believe, like all Republicans, that fear of over-regulation, rather than a lack of customers is what's stifling our economy.

The "confidence" businesses actually need is going to be driven up by a strong middle class and consumers who can afford their products; which as we've seen over the last few decades is what Republicans are determined to destroy.

The Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern pointed out earlier this year exactly why Kasich does not deserve credit for turning Ohio's economy around: REMARKS: Chairman Redfern Says Kasich Should Credit Obama, Brown, Dems for Ohio’s Improving Economy in State of the State Address:

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Current TV's Jennifer Granholm went after Mitt Romney with a bit of fact checking after he had the audacity to claim that he "deserved credit" for saving the auto industry. Granholm was in the middle of this disaster as governor of her state, so the indignation here is all to real and her disdain for Romney is deserved, because if it was up to him, he'd have allowed Michigan, along with every industry and state that relies on the auto industry and their workers, to just crash and burn. Consequences to what that would have done to the nation's economy be damned.

Dear Mitt: You Did Nothing to Save Detroit:

Dear Mitt Romney:

There are politics, there are lies, and then there's you. You take it to a whole 'nother level.

OK, I admit that I have a particular animus toward you, as a guy that knifed us in the back when Michigan was on its knees, but you simply cannot be our president. It cannot happen.

As you know, Mitt, I was governor of Michigan during that horrible time, when the financial industry was melting down and the auto industry was in free fall. And you were running for president. You saw the polls about the unpopularity of bailouts and you lumped the auto industry in with the bank industry -- the auto industry, where your father and so many of your family members had worked.

You raised your finger into the air, saw which way the wind was blowing, and followed it. Way to lead, Mitt.

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This comment at the end of what was billed as a major economic speech was just about as out of touch as the venue for the speech itself -- Ford Field. Mitt Romney gave a speech, yes. He said nothing specific, nothing new, and nothing realistic. He did, however, roam off his script long enough to declare his love for all things Detroit, and tell the crowd of one thousand people at a venue that seats 70,000 that he loves cars so much. And then he proceeded to name the cars they drive.

ROMNEY: I love this country. I actually love this state. This feels good, being back in Michigan. You know, the trees are the right height, streets are just right. I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles.

I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually. And I used to have a Dodge truck so I used to have all three covered.

It might be just a tiny bit out of touch to be in a city hit hardest by the recession, one where the candidate was perfectly at peace with allowing the United States auto industry to die a harsh death in 2008, and declare to the audience that Ann Romney drives not one, but two Cadillacs, with a starting price of around $47,000 or so.

Meanwhile, here's what was going on right outside. There may possibly have been more protesters than supporters at this event.

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During this Labor Day's GOP Presidential Forum hosted by right-wing South Carolina Sen. Jim Demint, Newt Gingrich decided to triple down on his statement calling President Obama "the most effective food stamp president in American history" and using the city of Detroit as an example to claim that "class warfare and bureaucratic socialism kill jobs."

Never mind globalization and the loss of our manufacturing base, the American auto industry making cars people didn't want to buy instead of keeping up with the Europeans and the Japanese and closing down plants in the United States for cheaper labor in Mexico and overseas, Reagonimics, tax policies that reward businesses for shipping jobs overseas and rotten conservative trade laws that don't protect American workers. No, it's "class warfare" and "socialism" to blame for Detroit's problems. He might be right when it comes to class warfare, except Gingrich and the rest of these right-wing talking heads pretend they don't know what class warfare means.

What did Gingrich follow with for our solution to the jobs crisis in America? More of the same of course that we've been hearing from all of them. Get rid of regulations, lower taxes, replace the EPA, no capital gains taxes, and of course more "drill baby drill." I'm waiting to see how long it takes Newt to run out of money so he's got to go back to hawking his books until the next time he wants to pretend he actually wants to be elected President. Gingrich is supposed to be the big "ideas" man according to the conventional wisdom from our beltway Villagers. The only ideas I've heard out of him are more trickle-down economics and terrible policies that got us into the mess we're in now.

Transcript below the fold.

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Every time you think these guys can't possibly stoop just a little bit lower with the tactics they're willing to resort to, they manage to sink to a new low. From the Detroit Free Press -- Conservative group: Fake eviction notices were 'meant to startle people':

The state director of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity offered no apologies today for papering homes in Detroit’s Delray district Monday with fake eviction notices.

Bearing the words “Eviction Notice” in large type, the bogus notices told homeowners their properties could be taken by the Michigan Department of Transportation to make way for the New International Trade Crossing bridge project. The NITC is the subject of debate in Lansing, and Americans for Prosperity is lobbying heavily against it.

“It was meant to startle people,” Scott Hagerstrom, the group’s state director, said today. “We really wanted people to take notice. This is the time that their opinions need to be heard. We wanted people to read it.” Read on...

And from Think Progress -- Americans For Prosperity Places Fake Eviction Notices On Detroit Homeowners’ Doors To Scare Up Support:

The Michigan chapter of the Koch-backed conservative activist group Americans For Prosperity (AFP) has been campaigning against a new bridge project called the New International Trade Crossing (NITC) that the state is considering. While there may be some merit to some of the arguments against the NITC project, the tactics AFP has just been found to be using in campaigning against it are revolting.

Yesterday, numerous residents in the Delray area of Detroit came back to their homes to find eviction notices. The problem was that these notices were not authorized by any sort of local government authorities. Rather, they were mocked up by AFP to look like actual eviction notices. The “notices” sensationally claimed to homeowners that their property may be seized if the NITC is constructed. Some residents, particularly elderly ones, were physically shaken by the tactic [...]

AFP’s tactics are bad enough by themselves, but they are even worse when you consider where the fake eviction notices were delivered. Michigan has the country’s highest foreclosure rate, and Detroit in particular is perhaps the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis.