Inspiration for posts have been few and far between for me lately. Remembering an old post on an old blog of mine I decided to look it up and post about how weird Mitt Romney is. In searching for that post, (more on that story soon) I found a Romney Flip Flop that should have massive consequences in the coming election.
This is the statement provided by Mitt Romney immediately following the death of Osama Bin Laden:
"This is a great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere. Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president. My thoughts are with the families of Osama bin Laden's many thousands of victims, and the brave servicemen and women who have laid down their lives in pursuit of this murderous terrorist."
Read below to see what Romney was saying about Bin Laden when President Bush was in office...
cross posted @ Allthingsdemocrat
Contrast that effusively gung ho 'great victory for lovers of freedom and justice' statement with what Romney had to say about Bin Ladenwhile Bush was still president:
[Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said. Instead, he said he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.
To be fair, Romney's take on Bin Laden during the Bush presidency echoed the take of the disaster in chief himself who said of the mastermind of 9/11: "I truly am not that concerned about him,"
Romney held the same lackadaisical attitude about capturing Bin Laden that Bush did while Bin Laden was living. Yet as soon as Obama pulled the trigger on the raid that lead to Bin Laden's death Romney discovered how important for freedom and justice killing Bin Laden actually was.
Recall Karl Roves scurrilous attack on President Obama in the Wall Street Journal. Rove was castigated for misquoting President Bill Clinton in order to minimize the consequence of Obama's decisions leading to the raid. It now seems clear that Rove's "easy call" really wasn't so simple. Bush wasn't concerned with Bin Laden and neither was Romney. How certain are you that given the same circumstances faced by Obama, Romney would have made the same call? Not very, if Romney's own words are to be believed... which I admit is not the best gauge to measure Romney but what else can we rely upon?
Rove is well known for attacking an opponents strength, trying to turn it into a weakness. One of Obama's chief accomplishments is that he hunted Bin Laden down. Quite simply Romney and Bush were not concerned about Bin Laden.
Romney echoed Bush in not being overly concerned about Bin Laden staying alive. Obama took risks and acted decisively in tracking Bin Laden down. Romney wanted Detroit to go bankrupt even as the President was making the tough call to save millions of American manufacturing jobs in the face of heated opposition. Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. Would we be able to say that if Romney had won the 2008 election?