PolitiFact published its 2012 “Lie of the Year” winner Wednesday morning and for anyone who followed the election this year, the results might not be too surprising: the honor of biggest whopper goes to former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, for his claim that Jeep was moving its U.S. production to China.
The lie apparently began with a grain of truth. After a Bloomberg article reported that Chrysler was planning to restart production of Jeeps in China, a conservative blogger jumped on the story, followed by the conservative Drudge Report, followed by the Romney camp. The Bloomberg article made clear however, after the first several lines, that Chrysler was planning on expanding into China, rather than shutting down American production.
Even after swift and continuous denials by Jeep’s parent company, the Romney camp persisted in spreading the lie, eventually even turning it into a TV ad. Politifact notes that “they stood by the claim, even as the media and the public expressed collective outrage against something so obviously false.”
