Political Hotsheet
By

Sean Gallitz /

CBS News/ March 1, 2012, 3:29 PM

Bill Clinton says Romney's dad "turning over" in grave hearing auto bailout attacks

Former President Bill Clinton said Thursday that President Obama's decision to rescue the American auto industry was the most important decision of his presidency and Mitt Romney's father is probably "turning over in his grave" when he hears his son criticize the effort.

"This was not about the factory workers, every time I hear Mr. Romney talking about this I think his Daddy must be turning over in his grave," Clinton said in a speech before the United Auto Workers in Washington.

Romney's father, George Romney, was the chief executive of American Motors decades ago and later served as governor of Michigan. His son, the presidential candidate, famously opposed the bailout in a 2008 opinion piece in the New York Times, writing "you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye" if GM, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout their chief executives were seeking in late 2008.

Romney has continued that criticism on the campaign trail, calling it "crony capitalism on a grand scale" in an op-ed in the Detroit News last month, before the Michigan primary where he narrowly defeated former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

GM and Chrysler and their suppliers, dealers and auto financing firms have taken around $80 billion in government aid in bailouts started in late 2008 by President George W. Bush and continued by President Obama.

While Romney has been very critical of the bailout, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama have defended their efforts to prevent the U.S. economy from falling into another depression. Mr. Bush last month told the nation's auto dealers he would "do it again" because he did not want to see "21 percent unemployment" in the United States. Some analysts have said the bailout saved the jobs of more than a million workers because of the interconnectedness the auto industry.

Mr Clinton told the auto workers the action taken should not even be called a "bailout."

"It wasn't a bailout, it was a restructuring, it was a structured bankruptcy," Mr. Clinton said.

"What was the alternative? Abolish all pensions and ask you to work for the minimum wage? That is not the America I want to live in," Clinton told the union workers.

The former president also predicted "taxpayers will be made whole and we will have saved the American auto industry" if Congress allows the Treasury Department to hold on to its 500 million shares in GM, or about a third of the reconstituted company after it emerged from bankruptcy, until the price climbs past its break even point of $53 per share.

Shares were trading around $26.52 Thursday afternoon.

"Taxpayers need to know they already got half their money," Mr. Clinton said.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
61 Comments Add a Comment
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pelosisux says:
Ann Romney was on Fox News this morning and completely knocked Slick Willy's IGNORANT statement right out of the park. She said Mitt's Father would have been CHEERING and would have done the same thing, a STRUCTURED Bankruptcy before giving them any Taxpayer dollars!

The way this was handled by Comrade Obozo and the Union Goons was a TRAVESTY!

Is it November yet? Go Mitt Romney! Our soon to be 45th President.
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twodm says:
Grave Turning Indeed... It's ann's father who is probably turning because........................................>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>It's not about Religion, It is about RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES VALUES.
Mitt Romney Converted Deceased Father-In-Law

Earlier this week, Gawker's John Cook wondered whether Mitt Romney's father-in-law had been converted to Mormonism -- posthumously. Wrote Cook:

Edward Davies, Ann Romney's Welsh father, was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who worked on designs for the Gemini space program and helped outfit aircraft carriers. He eventually became the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He was also a resolute atheist who insisted that his family be raised without participating in an organized religion. "He would say: 'I'm a scientist, show me the proof'," a former co-worker told the Telegraph. Davies thought of religion as "drudgery and hogwash," according to Boston Globe, and his son Roderick told the paper that Davies "considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees."

So it must have broken his heart when, after his only daughter began dating Mormon scion Mitt Romney, she converted to his religion with the help of Mitt's father.

The conversions didn't stop there. Mitt and his father, George, convinced Anne's younger brother to join the church, and then dispatched missionaries to convert her elder brother, who was then attending school in England. The mission was successful. And after Edward died in 1992, his wife -- Anne Romney's mother -- decided she, too, would become a Latter-Day Saint.

And so Cook asked:

Mormons, of course, are known for their habit of posthumously converting dead souls. They also believe that families are reunited in eternity after death. So the incentive for Ann Romney to convert Edward Davies in death so that they may one day frolic together in the interplanetary afterlife was presumably fairly powerful. Did she posthumously baptize him, despite his belief while he lived that such a baptism and the beliefs that undergird it are pure "hogwash"?

Cook contacted the Romney campaign and the Latter-Day Saints for info. Neither organization would comment, so Cook requested that any Mormon Gawker readers who might have access to the church's baptismal records please contact him. As it turns out:

Edward Davies, Mitt Romney's militantly atheist father-in-law, was indeed posthumously converted to Mormonism by his family.

... Davies was baptized as a Mormon at a "special family meeting" 14 months after his death: "All ordinances except sealing to spouse performed in Salt Lake Temple on 19 Nov 1993 in special family meeting."

That's Mitt Romney. Republican on Earth, totalitarian in eternity.

(Also, TELL THE MORMONS TO STOP BAPTIZING DEAD JEWS LIKE ANNE FRANK.)
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Randy Bell replies:
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What is all this irrelevant anti-religious diatribe about? Man! I'm an evangelical Christian, not Mormon or Jewish, but honestly, was all this necessary? Of what relevance is it? No offense ..
KhadijahBintMuhammad replies:
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So, you think......that this somehow disturbs the dead to be posthumously baptized? :-)

Who the hell CARES what they do?
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HempyD says:
The auto bailout, which Romney calls "crony capitalism" was an action our founders advocated.

In Alexander Hamilton's 1791 report to Congress on manufactures, he wrote:

"The public purse must supply the deficiency of private resource. In what can it be so useful, as in prompting and improving the efforts of industry?"

Romney and his conservative and Republican cronies continue waging war against the Constitution and the ideals and values of our founders.
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KhadijahBintMuhammad replies:
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Hamilton was opposed in this by Madison and Jefferson. Ergo, it is a lie to say that "our founders" advocated such.
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driveby_poster says:
Speaking of rolling over in the grave, President Billy, have you even looked at your own wife lately?
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smellyecoli5 says:
Hey pervert !!! Stick to cigars and 19 year old girls !! "I never had sex with that woman !!"' LIAR !! LIAR !!!
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Gusk76 says:
I will never understand how any working can say he is a REPUG. They are not for the working class.
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KhadijahBintMuhammad replies:
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No AMERICAN should ever been "FOR" a SUBSET of the citizenry, such as the "working class", in a manner which pits them AGAINST another subset. It is inimical to our values.

Give up the "working class" mantra. Become an American.
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mountainstates1 says:
There hasn't been a true "Republican" since Eisenhower. In the last 30 years the GOP has drifted so far to the right that they practically goose-step down main street in their brown shirts reminiscent of World War II Germany.
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KhadijahBintMuhammad replies:
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Sorry, facism's economics are leftist, not conservative. Do some reading, then get back to us.
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scottpatrick1234 says:
The devil is eagerly awaiting Clinton's entrace into hell for keeping partial-birth abortion legal by killing the ban that was twice sent to his desk.
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sandiegopete replies:
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Good for Clinton. At least he did one thing right. How does it feel Scott? Your war against women continues to get derailed.
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occupy_cbs says:
askagain: "Mitt Romney's father is not running for president"




Put down the crack pipe, since obviously Bill Clinton saying Romney's dad "turning over" in grave means that he is dead and running for nothing!
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occupy_cbs says:
"What was the alternative? Abolish all pensions and ask you to work for the minimum wage? That is not the America I want to live in," Clinton told the union workers.



But that is the America that willard romney and the rest of the delusional republicans want for our country -- Chinese wages and no benefits like pensions or health care!
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