The Nation's Wayne Barrett made an interesting catch here. He's the only one who seems to have noticed that a major New York Republican figure who helped with the GM bailout went on Bloomberg TV a few days ago and told host Betty Lui that Mitt's story about how the bailout could have been accomplished without government money is wrong. Barrett:
[Harry] Wilson appeared on October 23 on Bloomberg News’s In the Loop and was asked by host Betty Liu about Romney’s claims in the last debate that he’d supported a form of federal assistance to GM and Chrysler, namely “post bankruptcy” government guarantees to private lenders. Liu tried to soften the case against Romney in her question to Wilson, asserting that both Romney and Obama “were essentially right” in their bailout comments, but Wilson would have none of it.
“I’m, as you know, a Republican who supports the governor. But I think on this issue, I think he’s really mishandled it,” said Wilson.
A startled Liu: “Romney has mishandled it?”
“Yes,” continued Wilson. “He came out both in 2008 and earlier in 2012, in a piece in one of the Detroit newspapers, and said he wouldn’t have supported any government capital because private capital was available. That’s simply not true. The president said that last night.”
Liu interjected that the unavailability of private money was backed up by a Congressional Budget Office report.
“Absolutely,” added Wilson. “We tried everything we could to find private money. I personally would have dramatically preferred private money. It just wasn’t available because of the crisis we were in. And the greatest thing about this point is that it is the easiest thing in the world to prove or disprove. All you need is one person to come forward and say, ‘Oh, I would have provided private capital, and here’s an example of where I said that in 2009.’ And no one has said that in three years, cause it’s just not true.”
That's a bigwig Republican talking, a man who ran for statewide office in New York and possibly will again. Yes, I'm almost officially tired of saying Romney is a liar. But...Romney is a liar.
By the way, people, you do know I have the cover story in this week's Newsweek, right? Nowhere in it do I say Romney is a liar. Well, maybe in one place. Okay, two.
