Here’s another moment from last night’s debate that actually made me laugh out loud; Mitt Romney refusing to back down from his absurd claim that the hugely successful auto industry bailout program was a “failure.”

There’s no failed idea so ridiculous that Republicans won’t try it again. In 2008, Romney penned an op-ed for the New York Times claiming that the bailout would mean the end of America’s auto industry.

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.

He couldn’t possibly have been more wrong; to date, General Motors and Chrysler have repaid about half of the bailout money, and are on track to repaying the rest of it. And nobody is “kissing them goodbye.”

If conservatives like Romney had gotten their way and these huge companies had been allowed to go into bankruptcy at the time, the effects on the American economy would have been absolutely disastrous. Millions of people suddenly unemployed, and factories closed forever; in short, it was Romney’s idiotic idea that would have destroyed the auto industry.