Try as he might, Mitt Romney can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to national security. The Republican nominee apparently thought he had an opening in the wake of attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compounds in Cairo and Benghazi that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others dead.
Romney expressed immediate outrage and called it “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.” Romney was referring to an earlier statement put out by the U.S. mission in Cairo that apologized for the anti-Muslim film that provoked the unrest. But that statement came BEFORE the embassy attacks even began.
After the deaths of the American personnel were reported, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a stern condemnation, adding in a nod to the inflammatory anti-Muslim film that although the U.S. supports religious tolerance, “there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”
Which makes it look like Romney jumped the gun in the hope of scoring political points, leaving his campaign playing defense yet again on the question of whether the GOP nominee is quite ready to be commander in chief.
