Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler is not impressed with President Obama's short, rousing defense of the 2008-09 auto bailout, particularly Obama's claim that "Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency." Such "chicanery," says Kessler, conveniently ignores taxpayer loans to Chrysler before Obama's inauguration. The fact checker gives the president three "Pinocchios" (out of four), and calls the Friday speech "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech," with "virtually every claim" requiring an asterisk. Is Obama really relying on "phony accounting" to sell his rescue of GM and Chrysler?
Yes, Obama is trying to sell a lemon: Kessler's "devastating critique" is spot on, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. If you count the very relevant $4 billion that George W. Bush handed Chrysler before Obama's inauguration, taxpayers actually lost $1.3 billion on the Chrysler bailout. There would be no need for this "trumped-up rhetoric" if the bailout were really a "success."
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