In November 2008, before one bailout dollar was handed out to the auto industry, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed with the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." In it he argued that the best way to help and save the auto industry would be through a structured bankruptcy with the tools (laws) that the United States already has on its books.

The newly elected President Obama did not have confidence in America, in the bankruptcy laws that it offered, so he made a bet: he spent tens of billions of dollars on the auto industry thinking that this will work out better than what America had to offer via a regular bankruptcy. But only many months and tens of billions of dollars later did Obama force Chrysler and then GM into bankruptcy.

Obama's bet against America failed. He needed America to save his buddies at GM.

To date, Obama's gambit has already cost tax payers $25 billion; many more billions are still outstanding; 61% of Chrysler is in the hands of an Italian firm, and middle class GM bond-holders were screwed, because despite going down Bankruptcy Lane, Obama and his boys twisted arms to muscle out people from a potentially new GM in order to give more of it to the unions.

All this does not include the special treatment that the new GM got: Being able to write-off $45 billion in losses from the old firm against the gains and books of the new firm, thus costing tax payers billions of dollars in lost revenue that the new GM would have paid on this $45 billion in income.

All in All: It was Mitt Romney who was ready to bet on American Law in order to save GM and Chrysler. It was Obama who bet against America by going with the bailout which resulted in the above-described losses, including leaving 61% of Chrysler in foreign hands.