News Roundup for 4/30/12

Don't you dare accuse him of telling the truth


-Headline of the Day-
"Inside the Mitt Laden Smackdown."

Last week, the Obama campaign put out a video suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn't have dropped the hammer on Osama Bin Laden. Obviously, this was terrible. Mittens is not happy with it.

The problem, of course, it's Mitt's kneejerk messaging strategy -- i.e., everything Obama does is wrong. This puts him in the situation of having criticized the president for doing the sort of thing that eventually got Osama.

"In line with the late Bush administration policy and messaging on OBL, Romney repeatedly said that the US shouldn’t focus on hunting him down," writes Josh Marshall. "The point wasn’t that OBL was off the hook but that we shouldn’t be focusing on this one guy. Romney followed by attacking Obama in 2008 for suggesting that he would unilaterally send American troops into Pakistan to kill bin Laden. In both cases, Romney was doing little more than repeating the strategic or political orthodoxy of the GOP leader of the moment, in the first case George W. Bush in 2007 and then John McCain in 2008."

If Mittens says he wouldn't send troops into Pakistan to kill Bin Laden, how is he supposed to get into the situation where he gives the order for troops to kill Bin Laden in Pakistan? Romney specifically ruled out doing exactly what it took to get the guy. So when the President said Romney wouldn't have killed OBL, he was just taking the man at his word.

In other words, Mitt's getting bent out of shape because President Obama is not calling him a liar. That might be a first. (Talking Points Memo)


-I'm a terrible person-



I thought this was hilarious. (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)


-Bonus HotD-
"Depressed Bin Laden thought about ‘al-Qaida' name change, White House says."

Unfortunately, "The Apple Dumpling Gang" was already taken. (Yahoo! News)