WASHINGTON (AFP) ― A pugnacious President Barack Obama tore into Republican opponents Tuesday for fighting his efforts to save the auto industry, accusing them of selling out workers and talking “a load of you-know-what.”

In a barn-storming speech to auto workers gathered in the U.S. capital, Obama accused Republicans of being on the wrong side of history and of flagrant pandering to voters.

Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have vehemently opposed the $80 billion bailout, but have struggled to reconcile their positions with Michigan voters ― who go to the polls to choose a Republican candidate Tuesday.

“It’s been funny to watch some of these politicians completely rewrite history now that you’re back on your feet,” Obama told a gathering of the United Auto Workers, a large union, quoting a 2008 article written by Romney without naming him.

“These are the folks who said if we went forward with our plan to rescue Detroit, ‘you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.’ Now they’re saying they were right all along.”

Romney has frequently accused Obama of engineering the bailout to help his union friends, leveling charges of “crony capitalism.”

In full campaign flow Obama on Tuesday hit back in the strongest worded speech on the issue to date.

“They’re saying that the problem is that you, the workers, made out like bandits in all of this; that saving the American auto industry was just about paying back unions.

”Really? Even by the standards of this town, that’s a load of you-know-what.“

Since the bailout, which began with a rescue by then president George W. Bush, the U.S. auto industry appears to have turned around spectacularly.

General Motors recently announced it made a record profit last year, as sales growth in the United States and China helped the Detroit firm snatch back the title of world’s biggest automaker from Toyota.

Obama, in a message designed to drive home his election year calls for a fair economy and to appeal to the Democratic base, said that was thanks to sacrifices all round, which the Republicans had not acknowledged.

”They’re still talking about you as if you’re some greedy special interest that needs to be beaten,“ he said without naming names.