Romney camp’s level of deceit shows it may be ‘hail Mary’ time

>> columnist for "the washington post " and toure is my colleague and the co-host of "the cycle." desperate mitt, desperate measures. in your column this week you write, when the stakes are high, as they are for mr. romney , it must win ohio, the truth is often the first casualty. does that explain mr. romney 's completely dishonest and disturbing ad about chrysler moving jobs from ohio to china?

>> well, martin, this was a pattern even before and something i was pointing out --

>> so you're suggesting he's a pathological liar .

>> well, there is some pathology to it. it doesn't seem like it just came out of left field here. but when he had his back to the wall with rick perry , newt gingrich , rick santorum , you saw this sort of pattern. the fact checker at the waup has been -- " washington post " has been able to quantify this and he's at newt gingrich levels of honesty.

>> oh, my goodness.

>> president obama has gotten his share of pinocchios as well, but he's well within the range of normal politics. what romney has been doing here seems to be on a whole other plane, and that is to take something that is known to be false, it's been demonstrated to be false, retreat from it and go right back out and do it again.

>> it's brilliant. toure , i mentioned earlier the fear that's been caused by these romney falsehoods about these workers losing their jobs. let's listen to how the president responded to that.

>> you've got folks who work at the jeep plant who have been calling their employers worried asking is it true, are our jobs being shipped to china? and the reason they're making these calls is because governor romney has been running an ad that says so.

>> how are we supposed to trust a person who wants to be president who has so little regard for the lives of people?

>> that's right. that's right. i mean, it's been an entirely post-truth campaign. the president has said a few things and had an ad that was shown to be not true and i pulled the ad right back.

>> he actually wasn't responsible for that ad.

>> and there's that as well. romney 's campaign has been consistently post-truth which is a nice way of saying you are lying at a higher rate and at a larger rate than ever. i think we've consistently seen a lot of the endorsements that have gone for romney and said we don't actually know who he is, but we're going to go with that. we had a guest on our show today who said, well, i don't know what his plan is, but i like his style of leadership. i'm like how do you say that? like i don't know exactly what you're going to do but i like the way you've done it in the past. what is that?

>> i'm going to cut you short because you're not allowed to promote your own show on mine.

>> in the sport of hypocrisy, mr. romney is really an olympian. what could be more hippo critical than going around thumping your chest saying i love business while at the same time disparaging chrysler?

>> this gets into a realm of, you know, politicians, let's face it, are always shading the truth, but there aren't shades here. this is just plain wrong. the same thing happened with the -- when he was asked to explain how he would create 12 million jobs over 4 years. the campaign furnished three studies, provided them. those studies didn't prove anything at the time. so it's not -- this is just plain old black and white . this isn't about shading and spinning. this is about saying something that is just demonstrably false.

>> speaking of hypocrisy, rush limbaugh , that vat of poison, actually called someone else fat so that's hypocritical. that someone else is new jersey governor chris christie . for rush to do that must mean that rush is very, very angry with what appears to have been a working relationship between the president and the governor of a stricken state.

>> well, absolutely. rush posed an interesting question in the montage. can a man love another man? and i see just from our relationship, i love you, i think you love me. a man can love another man. and if a man can't love another man, then we have serious problems in america because there's lots of men we need to come together. it's not just political expediency here. these people are doing something together, working together in a very important bipartisan way. these people who have said the president can't work bipartisanly in a way that completely avoids and ignores the fact of obstruction, so, i mean, that just destroyed that idea. the president is working and taking care of the situation in a way that katrina was completely bungled and it's very interesting how the storm has arrived to show the president working with his thesis that we don't leave anyone behind. that government should be there for people. that we should be able to take care of people and a big effective government can do that. the tiny state by state government that mitt romney wants couldn't possibly do that. colbert made an excellent point of it would be great to have new jersey at a time when new jersey is struggling and under water take care of new jersey. new jersey, you pick up yourself. you're a whole state budget of $30 billion. the recovery will be $50 billion. you figure it out, new jersey. the federal government needs to be there for people and that's what barack obama is doing.

>> dana, final question to you. as you look at this week from the perspective of the president, we had this historic disaster, but his response has been speedy and substantive. he's been bipartisan in the way he's handled it. he's received the endorsement of an independent mayor, michael bloomberg , and today we have 171,000 new jobs created. would you say it's been a good week for the president?

>> it certainly has been, martin, although maybe who says they know what's going to happen on tuesday is just making it up because it's that kind of election where you just don't know, but things have come together in this last week for the president in about as an ideal a way as it could. nobody was looking to this storm for a political advantage, but it has made the president look presidential and the jobs report was the last chance romney had to really undermine obama just before the election. so unless something unexpected occurs, he is riding something of a wave into tuesday.

>> dana milbank and toure , thank you both, gentlemen, and a reminder, nbc will host a storm relief benefit concert and telethon tonight to raise money for the victims of sandy. matt lauer of the "today" show will be hosting performances by bruce springsteen , bon jovi , sting, billy joel , christina aguilera , and more. that's all at 8:00 p.m . this evening.