Forget about whatever it is that Allen West was bayonetting about earlier today. I want you to hear this instead, straight from the horse's mouth: "I thought the president's line was terrific," said former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig. "The Navy is stronger than it's ever been." Let that sink in.
From HuffPo:
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- President Barack Obama's "horses and bayonets" zinger, shooting down Mitt Romney's concerns about the state of the Navy, may have drawn reproach from Republicans, who called it "petty" and "belittling." But at least one former Navy secretary told The Huffington Post after Monday night's foreign policy debate that Obama was right on the mark.
Aww, the Republicans can't take a joke, though they sure can
make "retarded" ones.
Continues the corroborative Huff piece:
"I thought the president's line was terrific," said Richard Danzig, who served as secretary of the Navy for two years under President Bill Clinton. "You don't measure efficacy by the number of ships. You measure it by your firepower, by the character of your people, the character of your equipment."
[snip]
After the debate, Romney aides and surrogates decried the line as unbecoming of the president and a sign of Obama's "desperation."
"I think the president belittled the military," said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). "He compared the modern Navy to bayonets and horses -- I thought that was an amazing statement."
That's actually really touching, really, coming from a guy whose party's main presidential candidate didn't mention our troops during his RNC acceptance speech because
"you talk about things you think are important"; defends that glaring omission on the basis of
word choice; has a wife who openly
compares two-year Mormon missions to tours of war; and
doesn't mention war veterans a single time during a 90-minute debate on foreign frickin' policy.
By the way, Politifact Romney's Navy claim "pants on fire" lie.
Now for the nuclear take-down from Danzig:
"The basic point that didn't get mentioned, that I would add, is the number of ships actually went down during the years of George W. Bush and have gone up in the Obama years," Danzig said. "So the notion that Republicans are more effective in building the Navy is not a correct one."
"The Navy is stronger than it's ever been," [Danzig] added.
But, hey, who cares about facts, right?
Not Romney, that's for sure.
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