Major hat tip to acerimusdux who found this and posted it in my earlier diary. ALL the credit for this diary should go to acerimusdux. I'm just relaying it on to the Kososphere.
acerimusdux: And by the way, has anyone asked when Romney first used the words terror or terrorist to describe this attack? If he said it anytime in the first week I'd like to see the evidence.
Obama said "act of terror" the next day, Matt Olsen testified to congress a week later that it was a terrorist attack, and Jay Carney said on 9/20 that it was self evident that it was a terrorist attack.
So when did Romney himself actually say it? He didn't in his initial response, I checked that. I can't find any news reports that Romney called it terrorist before September 25.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says the attack on the American consulate in Libya was an act of terrorism and says the United States must use foreign aid to bring about lasting change in such places.
Would this have been a headline on 9/25 if it was old news?
Think Progress has
an article about this issue as well, complete with timeline.
Here is a timeline of the relevant events, starting the day after the September 11th attack:
SEPTEMBER 12: Romney gives a press conference to clarify his initial press release accusing Obama of sympathizing with the attackers.The full transcript of the event shows that he never used the words “terror,” “terrorism,” or “al-Qaeda.” That was Romney’s first statement on the event since the initial release the night before. Roughly 30 minutes afterwards, Obama used the phrase “acts of terror” to describe Benghazi in his Rose Garden remarks.
SEPTEMBER 13: The President used the same phrase to describe the attacks at a September 13 at a campaign event. Romney also addressed the tragedy in Libya at a campaign event, but the on-site reporting (the campaign does not appear to have provided a transcript) does not mention him referring to the attacks as terrorism and, moreover, suggests that Romney did not directly challenge the administration’s approach (semantic or otherwise) to the events.
SEPTEMBER 19: Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, says “[Americans] were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”
SEPTEMBER 20: Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams says “Governor Romney believes our immediate priority in Libya is to track down and bring to justice those terrorists who brutally murdered our diplomats. The attack is a clear reminder that terrorists, particularly those linked to Al Qaeda, remain a grave threat and one that is growing in North Africa.” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said “It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
SEPTEMBER 25: Romney tells Fox that “That’s an act of terror. But the White House doesn’t want to admit it.”
Want More? Follow me past the Orange Thingerdoodle.
First, Governor Romney's original statement on the attacks.
I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.
It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.
Then the next day both the transcript and the video of Romney's September 12th remarks about the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi.
I didn't see or hear any variation of the word "terror" in any of that. You want to know why? Because it wasn't there. Romney was too busy scoring political points over a tragedy, like Republicans did to great effect on another attack that happened on the 11th of September, to mention it.