More Worst Staff Work Ever: Romney On President Obama’s Characterization Of The Benghazi Consulate Attack
Last night, Mitt Romney tried to call out the President on his reaction to the Benghazi Consulate attack. Romney’s challenge followed this:
President Obama: The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. And I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later, I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families.
Romney jumped all over that part of the President’s comment:
MR. ROMNEY: I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed.
MR. ROMNEY: Is that what you’re saying?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: I — I — I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Get the transcript.
MS. CROWLEY: It — he did in fact, sir.
So let me — let me call it an act of terrorism — (inaudible) —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? (Laughter, applause.)
The point here isn’t that Romney was wrong. Honest mistakes occur. That Romney was so badly prepared on this 
factual issue is the more important point. It’s even worse when Romney seemed prepared to use the President’s reaction to Benghazi reaction against him. He’d been coached to pounce on this.
Throughout his primary and presidential campaign, Romney’s campaign staff has muffed and mangled. Certainly, old-fashioned truth-telling has been jettisoned long ago, but they really ought to be able to verify the underlying facts they use to ambush the President, especially, as here, they had hoped to make important oints about foreign policy. All voters will remember now is the flub, and the uneasy feeling it brings with it that a pipsqueak like Romney with no national foreign policy experience would deign to wrongly criticize President Obama. Very bad staff work, or very bad candidate, likely both.
Throughout the campaign we’ve witnessed a virtual Romney/Ryan lying machine at mach speed, operating full out. Within those lies and misinformation the staff advice and research Romney’s gotten is frighteningly bad. One knows research is bad when a simple Google search uncovers it on every search result on page one. Check out Romney/Ryan’s assertions that President Obama rescinded the welfare work requirement, or the “six studies” they cite for how their tax plan really does make mathematical sense.
Imagine how inept, careless, and arrogant a Romney administration would likely be. Imagine that administration being led by a man who simply could not care less.
