Jonathan Cohn:
Fehrnstrom, Obama's Top Strategist, Says Auto Bailout Worked Because It Was Mitt's Idea All Along: Romney… for the auto bailout before he was against it, is back to being for it…. Eric Fehrnstrom, his top campaign strategist and longtime political adviser…. “His position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed,” Fehrnstrom said.
“He said, ‘If you want to save the auto industry, just don’t write them a check. That will seal their doom. What they need to do is go through a managed bankruptcy process.’”… Not exactly…. [T]he story goes like this:
Romney’s first major public statement… suggested a “structured bankruptcy” similar to what Obama eventually pursued…. Once the Republican primaries got underway… Romney… [said] it was wrong to put taxpayer dollars at risk…. "Bailouts are not the answer." Then, a few months ago, Romney began to backtrack… impending Michigan primaries…. Now Romney seems to be backtracking all the way, claiming (through his top campaign surrogate) the Obama strategy was really his all along….
Romney… consistently opposed Obama’s decision to loan GM and Chrysler money directly from the government, putting taxpayer dollars at risk. And those loans are precisely what allowed the companies to survive….
Tracking Romney’s statements on the auto bailout can be tiring and, yes, tedious. On the bright side, it can also be funny…. Oliver Willis of Media Matters for America used his twitter feed to unleash a series of tweets he called “Fehrnstroming.” Among them:
romney 1776: "anyone else think its time we stop being british subjects?"
romney: "yeah, stan, what if we make the lead character a teenager, and have him bitten by something like... a spider?
romney: "sorry to interrupt this gathering of cavemen, but have you fellows considered 'fire'?
romney: "bill, this stuff is good... but have you tried writing it in iambic pentameter?"
