Politicians have a tendency to manipulate the truth for their benefit and to convince potential voters for their support. Some bend the truth, other stretch the truth, while others simply omit bits and pieces of the truth in order to lead the public into drawing favorable conclusions.

These politicians understand that a good campaign pitch — to be truly believable — needs to have, at the very least, a kernel of truth, albeit distorted to the very brink of falsehood. Or as my grandmother would say, “It take little bit of truth to tell a good lie, else no one would ever believe the lie.”

Recently, Mitt Romney, the GOP’s de facto nominee for president, took credit for the outstanding automotive industry turnaround in the last two years. In an interview with ABC News’ Cleveland affiliate WEWS, Romney said, “I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and finally when that was done and help was given, the companies got back on their feet, so I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back.”

In all fairness to Romney, he did call for a managed bankruptcy that would call for a reduced labor force as well as force the remaining auto workers to accept a drastic cut in “pay and perks.”

But when it came to giving auto companies such as Chrysler an economic stimulus in order to save it and the thousand of jobs it generates, Romney was diametrically opposed to the government giving the auto industry a bailout of any kind.

In the 2008 op-ed piece “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” which ran Nov. 18 in the New York Times, Romney contended that if Ford, Chrysler or GM got the bailout their CEOs asked for it would have had a devastating effect on the auto industry. In fact, Romney’s exact words were “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”  

Thankfully, President Obama instead authorized a bailout that saved more than a million jobs and the economy from an even deeper crash.  

History has shown that Obama was right to bail out the auto industry and Romney was wrong to advocate against taking action.

Given this, one would think that Romney would have the humility to admit he was wrong and have the integrity to give credit where credit is due. But no, instead the former Michigan resident forgets the facts and rewrites history to suit his own political agenda.

This faux pas speaks volumes about Romney’s character. As for me and others who follow the news, will we consider voting “Romney for President?” Forget about it.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of BET Networks.

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