Paul Ryan and the Janesville GM Plant

You can file this under "liberals are so stupid" I guess, but last night Obama's campaign manager sent out an email that said of Paul Ryan,

He lied about Medicare. He lied about the Recovery Act. He lied about the deficit and debt. He even dishonestly attacked Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin — a plant that closed in December 2008 under George W. Bush.

We all know the spin they put on Medicare and the spendulus, but let's talk about that GM plant. First, the "fact check":

The Janesville plant stopped production of SUVs in 2008 and was idled in 2009 after it completed production of medium-duty trucks.

So no, Messina, it closed in 2009. Furthermore, according to that JS piece, it has been sitting there idle waiting for the economy to recover, which is the exact point Paul Ryan was making, as you'll see when we roll the tape on Ryan's speech.

President Barack Obama, came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those are very tough days. And any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My own state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it. Especially in Janesville where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that G.M. plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, "I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years."

That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns where the recovery that was promised is no where in sight. Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. 23 million people unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. (emphasis added)

The plant is a symbol for the failure of Hope 'N' Change, and Messina knows just how powerful and easy to visualize the image of a closed plant is ... especially in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.

So he sent the Obama fanboys on a mission to quibble over the date it closed to distract attention from the fact that it still sits there shuttered, a victim of President Tee Time's failed policies like so many other parts of our economy after his flowery rhetoric of 2008 ran into the cold, hard wall of his incompetence.

Doc Zero has more on the saga of the Janesville plant.

On a related note, AC/DC fan Paul Ryan just released a summarized version of the Romney/Ryan budget:

Obama^® Brand red ink sales hardest hit.

posted by Andy at 09:20 AM

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