How exactly was he supposed to do that when you needed 60 votes in the Senate to achieve anything?
Sure, you might have a point but it was still deeply disappointing when he didn’t walk across the Atlantic to his first G8 summit.
Has anyone actually seen a death certificate?
Eh, Karl Rove can hire somebody to find other evidence that he can’t swim.
I think it’s perfectly fair for the Obama team to point out his/his administration’s accomplishments and to use Romney’s own statements re’ the priority of bringing bin Laden to justice and of unilaterally entering Pakistan to do so against him.
It is perfectly plausible to suggest, as the ad does, that a President Romney would NOT have devoted the resources to the hunt for bin laden OR authorized the raid which took him out…based on his own publicly stated positions.
Remember, as it turned out, there were very organized and influential forces WITHIN/INFILTRATING the Pakistani government and military working against the U.S. in their hunt for bin Laden…had we opted to inform the Pakistanis of the raid ahead of time, bin Laden would have been tipped off and gotten away, as he had numerous other times.
The Pakistanis can stomp and whine about national soveriegnty all they want, but at the end of the day, bin Laden was an internationally wanted fugitive being sheltered by Pakistani affiliates with access to classifed communications and Obama made a decision Romney is on record as stating he WOULDN’T have made (and without which, the raid would have failed and/or cost American lives). In that sense, the scenario the ad poses is NOT completely hypothetical.
Either Romney MEANT what he said re’ his positions on the bin Laden/Pakistan matter (and would have failed to get bin Laden under the same circumstances as a result) or he DIDN’T really mean what he said or has yet again shifted positions. Either way, he comes off looking bad (which is, HELLO, the purpose of political ads…to make your opponent look bad and you look good.)
And I can assure you that had Obama NOT taken out bin Laden, the Romney camp WOULD be running ads questioning Obama’s committment to the goal, competence as Commander in Chief, and even (gasp!) sympathy with/for the radical Muslim/terrorist cause. Take it to the bank. They would be using bin Laden against Obama in as many ways and on as many levels as they could.
The Democrats (and the Progressive Left in general) need to stop hesitating to return fire for fire. They need to lose the attitude that they should play nice and not play hardball like the Right does.
The Right has NO qualms about getting as low and dirty as they need to, about hammering away on buzz-words and talking points which have no meaning and/or basis in reality, co-opting the language to their own ends (the infamous “tax and spend liberal” memo being one example…just repeat the phrase often enough, and you can make “liberal” a dirty word) and hitting below the belt.
Of course, I do think the Dems should avoid LYING and engaging in the sort of despicable character assasination the Right so often employs. You can play hardball without breaking the rules, though…without being so obssessed with coming across as “nice” that you pull your punches (or your hits, not to mix metaphors:smack:)
This ad may skirt the line between playing hard to win and breaking the rules, but, imo, does NOT cross it…it insinuates that Romney would not have accomplished what Obama did, but it cites Romney’s own comments to make the argument and doesn’t attribute his possible failure to some nefarious motive or character flaw.
Fair ball and a home-run to boot. The Right is just pissed because the Dems took a page out of THEIR playbook.
Yep, agree.
Yep, agree.
Yep, agree.
Yep, agree.
It doesn’t skirt the line. It’s totally fair. Obama got him, and I’m glad OBL is gone.
I keep thinking back to how many times Romney has criticized Obama for “not running on his record”. Well, this is part of his record.