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Subscribe to RSSAsked on a rope line if he would have "gone after" Osama bin Laden, if he would have "given the order," presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney responded, "Of course, of course. Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order."
The former President Carter, of course, did undertake a risky hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980 that failed -- and cost Carter dearly politically. It sealed an image of a weak president. That coupled with a weak economy, ultimately led to Ronald Reagan's landslide victory.
If the bin Laden raid had failed in similar fashion, Republicans would have surely portrayed President Obama in the same way.
Romney and the GOP have tried to paint Obama as a Jimmy Carter caricature, anyway, weak and inept. Reports have indicated, however, that the call to undertake the raid was not with 100 percent certainty. Intelligence, White House officials said, was thought to be about 50-50 that bin Laden was in the compound.
"At the end of the day, the president assessed that it was a circumstantial case, and it was probably a 50-50 chance that Osama bin Laden was there," said Tom Donilon, National Security Adviser, last year following the raid.
Vice President Joe Biden has said he advised Obama against going through with the raid.
The Obama campaign has questioned whether Romney would have given the order. In a video released Friday, a graphic asks, "Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?” the ad asks. It highlights this Romney quote: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs defended the video on Meet the Press on Sunday, saying, "I don’t think it’s clear that he would" have ordered the raid.
Ed Gillespie, an adviser to the Romney campaign and former Bush adviser, though, said: “This is one of the reasons President Obama has become one of the most divisive presidents in American history. He took something that was a unifying event … and he’s managed to turn it into a divisive, partisan, political attack. … I think most Americans will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign.”
The Obama campaign posted a video called, "Forward," that highlights his record in the past three years, including again touting the killing of bin Laden. The video will be played ahead of the president's first "official" campaign events -- in Virginia and Ohio.
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Paul Ryan and Romney went to the same seminar:
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said during a 2005 event honoring Rand in Washington, D.C."
"I reject her philosophy," Ryan told National Review on Thursday. "It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don’t give me Ayn Rand."
Hahahaha,,,,,,,,Romney would of never reinitiated the search after Bush openly stopped looking for Bin Laden, So whether or not he would have ordered the Seal team to take them out is moot.
Republican leaders made the statement A LOT that it was to expensive to continue looking for Bin Laden, Finding him was a main priority of Obama's from day one and,,,,,,,,,,They got him, Deal with it, Republicans GAVE UP LOOKING, Americans DID NOT!!!!
Yeah, obama wanted to get his brother and mentor to someplace safe. Why else did it take MAJOR arm twisting to get him to make the decision?
Dawn, either substantiate what you say with some actual facts, or kindly STFU. You have gone from being mildly amusing in a Rush Limbaugh, Bull@!$%# Artist sort of way, to just flat out lying your sorry ass off.
It's liberals that lie, it's the only way they can get elected.
Dawn, GOPers can only make statements and use labels when they argue.
Well that's a pathetic lie. What about rethugs, repubs, teabaggers, etc.? It is the left that resort to childish behaviour.
Romney's comment about the former President Carter is absolutely despicable when trying to compare it to the take down of Bin Laden. There are not enough words in the explicit language that I can say about Romney regarding that comment and then to smirk as though it was funny. Is this man a nut? Romney has no professionalism in how to behave as a president. This man is not coach-able.
HelloDock, Really, and you think Obama saying that Romney would not have done the same thing in reference to ordering the strike sounds professional or Presidential? Sounds desperate and dispicable to me. Give me a break!
Dee, WTF are you misremembering now? The President merely refered to those who, at one time or another, said in their own words that they would have handled OBL differently than he did. And, that just happened TODAY, Dee, not even a year ago.
In point of fact, there is a quote from Romney to that effect.
Why do you find it so necessary to just make @!$%# up, Dee? With so much available on the web, it seems hard to believe that it is just that you are misinformed.
JC, Wow, you are throwing a hissy fit, sorry to strike such a nerve, if you were reading my response to the original post you would understand that I was responding to the poster that called Romney unpresidential and unprofessional about the Carter statement which just happened TODAY and comparing it to the comment Obama made that Romney would not have ordered the strike, which happened TODAY! What is your problem man. I think I made a fair comparison, sorry you don't like it. Too bad! Wow, do you liberals get angy when we try to counterattack to the nonsense that we hear all the time on these posts! I know it hurts to hear the truth!
Uh, you so you're saying you needed to intentionally misrepresent what the POTUS said, in order to make your point? And, you think that's OK?
I don't misrepresent anything! I call it like it is!
Dee "Patriot": Seems to me that President Obama was referring to something that Mr. Romney actually said in the past.
Mr. Romney was making a ineffectual swipe at someone (President Carter) who has nothing to do with the situation AND did make such a descision when it was called for, even if the results were unfortunate.
I guess I am not sure how you CANNOT see the difference.
Romney called it and liberals can't stand the truth. Even Carter, as incompetent as he was, would have said yes.
What cracks me up is that Republicans cannot find a better representative for their cause than Mitt Romney, a former liberal Johnny come conservative lately. Having once been a Republican myself (until they took their radical jag to the right leaving me at the center), it seems to me that this is the opposite of what they would have wanted and that they are just settling for SOMEBODY.
Dee, can't you even remember back to your first post on this threadlet? It's right up there for you to refresh your memory!
In it, you made a specific statement about what the President said about something. Neither you, nor anyone else, it seems, can back up your statement.
I would call that a misrepresentation at the very least, and that's the polite version.
president carter possess something mitt Romney will never have, honesty, decency, class, mitt Romney is nothing but a liar but he cannot help it he was born with a white lie in his mouth
Carter was so incompetent, he was kicked to the curb in four in a landslide. The only good thing Carter gave us was Reagan. I lived through that disaster, misery index and stagflation were both popularized in Carters tenure.
Reagan was a marketing triumph but a political disaster.
mitt Romney is not a likable guy, most people don't like liars, because when a person lie like mitt Romney they will do anything nothing is to low for them
Obama is the liar in chief, nobody can surpass that.
While all politicians stretch the truth, there is no evidence to support the idea that Obama has lied about anything.
Romney, on the other hand, routinely reverses himself for the sake of political expediency, and denies ever having held the opposing position, all well-documented evidence to the contrary.
Romney acts like a rich frat boy running for student government.
Love the Ed Gillespie quote. Thought he was talking about how George W. Bush used 9/11 to start his private war in Iraq and divided the country over it.
Republicans are always projecting.
Democrats in congress voted overwhelmingly to go to war. Funny how libs leave that fact out.
Congress might have voted to go. President Bush was the CinC at the time and gets credit for sucess or failure where it is due. Also, President Bush dropped the ball in Afghanistan to go show his daddy he could get the job done. Funny how the Repugs forget that. Oh, I am sorry, we can't blame any previous administrations for any of our problems.... My bad...
Not really. Especially since you're omitting the fact that they were told by Bush that there was a (non-existent) imminent threat. They were told that there was incontrovertible proof of weapons of mass destruction that simply didn't exist.
Funny how you left that fact out.
No more GOP type CEO's for president or vice president.
No more incompetent community organizers for president or vice president.
Just because you don't like what he has done, that doesn't mean he hasn't done anything. The fact is, he's accomplished much that the majority of us think is just fine, as you will see this fall.
Romney gets less likeable every time he opens his mouth. He might have done a decent job as president. Fact is, he comes off as such a douche nozzle that we will never know. Maybe they should run Ann Romney? She seems part of our species.
Speaking as a resident of Massachusetts, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. ;-)
Well at least President Obama did one thing in 3.5 years that we can all be proud of. Not much else I can say for his leadership, or lack thereof. This POTUS is the most polarizing to ever serve. Such a shame.
I miss GW Bush.
Good tlins, Good.
I can't believe I am saying this, I actually miss Clinton! That's how scary Obama is!
I don't miss him, but I sure did like him. Too bad he had to turn his surplus and peace over to a repub. Those good ole days disappeared very quickly!
Did you flunk social studies? Congress passes budgets, not presidents. It was a republican congress under Newt Gingrich that passed a balanced budget. Clinton couldn't veto it or he would have shut down government.
In contrast senate democrats haven't passed a budget in over three years.
Thanks in large part to Republican filibustering.
“This is one of the reasons President Obama has become one of the most divisive presidents in American history. He took something that was a unifying event … and he’s managed to turn it into a divisive, partisan, political attack. … I think most Americans will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign.”
Really, the only ones making it divisive are repubs. Barack Obama made the call...not Romney. President Obama got Osama, not Romney (the guy who would not have wasted the time or money). Just because repubs don't want to acknowledge it, does not make the fact it happened go away. President Obama made us safer, not any repub.
Laura, this is BS. Sorry. Where do you hear that the Republicans did not give credit to Obama for the call he made that resulted to the death of BinLaden? This could not be farther from the truth. Obama was the one who decided to shoot his mouth and threw Romney into the equation out of nowhere with that stupid statement that Romney would not have done the same thing. When does Obama not make anything divisive. This is all he does! This is the only thing he is campaigning on. Very pathetic!
Dee....sorry, you lose: Romney quote: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
Laura, there must so much desperation that you have to go back to a quote that was said 5 years ago which has nothing to do with what Romney's decision would have been if he were faced with the same scenario as President. You really are reaching!
Desperate? The only one desperate is you guys trying to pretend that facts don't exist. You guys want to pretend that Pres Obama is weak on foreign policy and economy....facts don't support your argument. You need to find something else. Sorry, there isn't anything else, so you guys are stuck with your lies.
Laura, facts? So you think it is a fact that Romney would not have made the same decision that Obama did?
Yeah, spoken like a true Etch a Sketch follower! BTW....Osama was killed 1 year ago! Yes, I agree with you, what your party leaders say changes on a day to day basis....you can't depend on anything they say.
I think it is a fact that he said he wouldn't so, yes, I do not think he would have. Otherwise you have to admit that he is a liar. Sorry, you can't have it both ways.
Obama should know about liars, he has been one since the first day he served in office.
Oh really, and what did he lie about....is he the one who said he wouldn't go after Osama? Nope, he isn't the Etch a Sketch guy.
Dee, you really are making a fool of yourself.
TEAPUGS VERSUS COMDEMS........
By the way Forward is commonly used by the coms.....
I just remembered where I had heard that “Forward” slogan before…Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward!!!”:
NBC's new campaign is "lean forward". They don't even bother to hide their prejudice anymore.
Next we'll be hearing about how many times the word 'forward' is used in the Communist Manifesto. Then, it's on to numerology.
Idiots.
Romney sounds kind of jealous to me.
No, just telling it like it is.
It's hillarous watching the Republicans foaming at the mouth over the president righty taking credit for his accomplishment of killing bin Laden. Sorry crazies but the Republicans are no longer the national security party.
Just like Democrats not being the party of the "economy"
Dee....sorry, you lose again:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in four years, adding to evidence that the job market was strengthening.
The New York Times
In addition, the government confirmed that the nation’s economy grew 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Applications for weekly unemployment benefits fell by 5,000, to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, theLabor Department said Thursday. That was the fewest applicants since April 2008.
The four-week average of jobless claims, a less volatile measure, declined to 365,000 — the fewest for that measure since May 2008.
No one takes into consideration the number of people in the workforce that is growing and are re-entering the workforce and not enough jobs for them. Are you feeling good about the economy with the facts that you just stated? Are you satisfied that this is the slowest recovery on record since the Great Depression? I know I am not as a majority isn't with the unemployment staggering at 8.2%. They will decide in November. You won't like the outcome.
I am satisfied that the country is no longer on the brink of collapsing (jobs are up, stocks are strong, people are buying again). And all this even with all the barricades repubs put up trying to prevent the economy from improving.
Good for you if you are satifsifed with the current economy. I sure as hell am not. I personally have higher standards, we could do much better, Obama is clueless and keeping us from a true recovery.
Yes, I am very proud of the standards that President Obama demonstrates every day! You go ahead and keep your Etch a Sketch standards of the guy who wants to get rid of birth control, whose views change on a day to day basis, and has no clue about the average citizen in this country....he likes firing people.
You mean like lying, intimidation, bailing out his cronies on wall street, laundering taxpayer money through the solyndra's of the world so part comes back to his campaign funding? Shipping weapons to drug cartels, shoving Obamacare down our throats, suing Boeing? How pathetic.
Vahallla Phil: Cut the BS! You sound like some uneducated cracker!
Repubs strategy...let's just pretend that Romney got Osama instead of Pres. Obama. Yeah, that'll work....ROTFL!
Dem strategy, let's just pretend Obama got Bin Laden, not the navy seals. Yeah, that'll work.. ROTHFL.
Phil: Well, maybe I was wrong above. You may well be an uneducated cracker.
They are the Palin clones....they have their 25 memorized lines and that is all they need to know.
George Bush promised he would get Obama...but never came close. Obama is action...not just talk. God bless him.
Connie, Obama is action all right, the one who wanted to do away with the enhanced interrogations put in place during the Bush adm. and later lead to the capture of Binladen.
Actually Dee....they didn't.
That said, the information that is available publicly indicates that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad -- the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, did in fact provide the "nickname" of one of Bin Laden's couriers eight years ago. Khalid Sheik Mohammad (KSM) had in fact been subjected to repeated waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation." The problem with their theory is that KSM did not divulge this information as a result of this "enhanced interrogation." Apparently it was divulged many months later as a result of conventional methods. And the "nickname" of the courier was useless until signal intelligence allowed the United States to identify the real name and identity of the actual courier many years later.
The neo-cons always claim that their use of torture did produce actionable intelligence, and yet they have yet to provide a single example. Surely it can't all still be classified. Yet, nothing, zip, nada....bull@!$%#.
Romney just can't open his mouth without putting his foot in it. Whether it's Jimmy Carter (who's done a lot of good since leaving office) or chocolate chip cookies, he has nothing good to say about anyone or anything. Add to that his record (which he's proud of, by the way) of closing U.S. businesses and outsourcing jobs and he's pretty much useless. Can you imagine how he'd deal with Iran, North Korea, Russia, and on and on, if he were elected? Diplomatic he isn't and he'd offend every country on the planet in record time. Fortunately, the chances of his being elected are very slim, but still, we had GWB for eight years, thanks to Karl Rove. By the way, this quote from the article is classic Rove: "This is one of the reasons President Obama has become one of the most divisive presidents in American history." No, Obama isn't divisive but let's keep repeating that lie anyway and try to take the focus off the divisive TPers.
The best think Carter did WAS leaving office. And Romney got it right, even incompetent Carter would have said yes.
Obamas foreign relations have been a disaster, in less than four years he has Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan all hating us instead of being allies under Bush.
Nobody respects Obama, China and India blew him off on climate, Israel and Palestine blew him off on peace talks, the EU blew him off on stimulus, etc. he's had one failure after another.
VP,
Puhleeease. Romney doesn't get anything right.
Obama's foreign relation policies have been better than anything Bush could have imagined. Iraq and Afghanistan weren't U.S. allies under Bush -- he declared war on them. The occupying armies in Iraq and Afghanistan were the allies. The rest of the world couldn't stand Bush. They respect Obama.
It was a gutsy call for Obama in approving the raid on bin Laden's compound. There's nothing gutsy about Romney. Bravery means having a clue about what you're doing and making a conscious decision to do the right thing against the odds. Romney's in a world of his own and he's too scared to even try a chocolate chip cookie. But, hey, we all know you criticize Obama because you're told to, like a good Republican.
All Mitt Romney continues to do is prove he is a F-uck-ing clueless Dork.
I would love for someone to ask this Prick...."Is it your advice to all American Citizens with the where-with-all to do it to move money out of US banks to offshore accounts in Switzerland and the Caymen Islands like you have done?"
I would love to see this c-o-c-k--sucker squirm with that question.
Democrats have been in control of government ever since they took over congress six years ago and it's been down hill ever since. Under their watch, the fat cats have gotten bailed out while the middle class have been destroyed. Ever since they took over, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.
Thanks Phil for displaying a textbook example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. May your hopelessly flawed logic be a teachable moment for the rest of us.
Phil,
It's interesting what kind of story you can concoct when you omit half of the facts.
Mr. O’Donnell, Steve Clemons has been knocking the leather off the baseball all day. Mr. Clemons is so right. Willard Romney would never, would never get Osama Bin Laden on actionable intelligence because Osama Bin Laden is the boogie-man for his right-wing agenda: thus, the GOP is a very dangerous party.
You will never in a thousand years convince me that George W. Bush didn't spare Osama Bin Ladens life because of the Bush family ties to the Saudi Bin Laden family and their money that financed GW Bush's dry hole oil wells in Texas some 20 years earlier.
GW Bush..."I don't know where Osama Bin Laden is and I really don't care...I just don't think about him much anymore"
Unbelievable comments !!!!
If Romney had been President during the Iran hostage crisis, he would have said it wasn't worth the effort to try to get the hostages free.
Unless there was something in it for Bain Capital.
The reason Romney didn't want a bailout for General Motors was that he seen a golden opportunity for Bain Capital to rape them of their remaining assets and screw the stock holders and employees out of their pension money.
If it wasn't for Carter giving Iran a free pass, we would still be allies and Iraq would have been held in check by the Iranians, our friends. Instead he threw them under the bus. Bush didn't start the war, Carter did the moment he abandoned Iran to the mullahs.
Right Phil......the Iranians would have loved us so much more had we continued to prop up the brutal dictator we installed when we overthrew their democracy.
Now that is some seriously psychotic sh!t.
Romney is no conservative! Cut the BS. I'm beginning to believe he has no integrity either.
What a douche to take a cheap shot like that at an honest and sincere man like Jimmy Carter. But I guess that's what today's Republicans have turned to.
I miss the days of Bob Dole.
The Republican Party is a relic. Russia is our #1 global foe! Communists are in our Government! The Black Panther Party is running amok! The President is acting like Carter!
These people are perpetually stuck in the past.
Frankly, I think the term "patriot" is over used by people who listen to too much right wing talk radio.
What are your patriotic credentials Mr or Ms teapartypatriotrealamerican? It is interesting to me that you comment that "These people are perpetually stuck in the past" when it seems to me that most people claiming the term "patriot" want to take our country back in time...
Just because you bought a bumper sticker that says 'patriot', that doesn't make you one.
If I were Obama, I'd take Romney's remark as a compliment!
It was Jimmy Carter's team that successfully negotiated for the US hostages' release from Tehran. But sadly, history doesn't remember it that way because the hostages' release date happened to fall on Ronald Reagan's inauguration date. And of course, Reagan greedily swooped in and scooped up all that goodwill for himself and his 'morning in America' image.
Romney obviously falls in line with the revisionist historians who prefer to remember Reagan as a demi-god and Carter as a limp-wristed loser. Reagan raised taxes (twice), and government size increased to (then) unprecedented levels. Not to mention the fact that Reagan operatives sold arms to Iran (that same hostage-taking nation) in exchange for hostages (because he failed to do so through honest negotiation as Carter's team had 8 years before).
As for Obama and Romney's assertion that Obama is 'capitalizing' on getting bin Laden on his watch? Yeah SO WHAT?!? Show me ONE politician (especially in election season) who wouldn't capitalize on capturing the #1 fugitive of the past 11 years? And I sure as hell remember George W. Bush in 2004 crapping on about how much 'safer' we ALL were post 9/11 under his oh-so-vigilant watch....
And no; I DON'T believe Bush would've got bin Laden (he hadn't done so in 8 years, and he wouldn't have if he'd had another four; even if it were possible for him to stay in office that long) and nor would Romney because these kinds of jokers are all bluster and image and no results.
Please America; don't fall for the usual Republican bull. These guys had the wheel for 8 years (Jan. 2001 to Jan. 2009) and they crashed this country (through obscene overspending and an expensive, unwarranted war) into a ditch. Now they've spent the last 3 and a half years hurling insults and revised historical 'facts' at the guy who's calling for the tow-truck...
Sebastian - the reason the Republicans aka Bush didn't go after Bin Laden is that they needed a "Boogey Man" to scare the American public
Also during the elections all of a sudden tapes came out about Bin laden threaghtening us and the Americans fell for it
Remember the yellows, reds and all the BS they pulled - did you ever see a green? Coast clear?
No be afraid - be very afraid! If Bin Laden was dead - what next aliens from an unknown planet? Possibly but Republicans don't have that imagination
Yukk! I never fell for it and I'm not a genius!
Me neither, Barbara. ;-)
It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who remembers recent history accurately.
Republicans DO love their boogeymen, don't they? And yes, I do remember the 'red scare' (first reared it's paranoid head in the '50s, brought back with renewed vigor in the Reagan '80s). As for the bin Laden ongoing threat that loomed over so much of the Bush presidency? It seems like every election season, (or whenever Bush's popularity took another dip in the polls) we got a new tape, remember?
;-D