Pawlenty lies and claims that Romney would have saved the auto industry

Former Minnesota Governor and failed 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty appeared on ABC's This Week to stump for Mitt Romney. Host George Stephanopoulos let Pawlenty claim that Mitt Romney would have saved the auto industry. Pawlenty was lying.

Watch him fib for yourselves:

Unfortunately for Pawlenty, Romney wrote a little op-ed in the NY Times back in 2008:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

Oops.

Too bad President Obama's bail-out succeeded and GM and Chrysler are doing much better now and paid back their bail-out loans.