Romney's Comments on Embassy Attacks Backfire Badly

[NJMaverick]

Quote:Mitt Romney's attack on President Obama for the "disgraceful" decision to "sympathize" with the murderers -- and his decision to stick with the political attack in a press conference Wednesday -- "is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign," Time's Mark Halperin says. The "campaign faces a near consensus in Republican foreign policy circles that, whatever the sentiment, Romney faltered badly," BuzzFeed's Ben Smith writes. "I've been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney's response was a mistake. Not today," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough tweeted. Peggy Noonan said on Fox, "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors, say in the past few hours, perhaps since last night... Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go." Former George W. Bush pollster Matthew Dowd tweeted, "Romney react feels a lot like ready, fire, aim."
But if you watched Romney's press conference Wednesday in which he doubled down on his statement, the candidate seemed to think he was nailing it. After he finished responding to each question, he smiled, looking very satisfied. ("The statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology and i think was a severe miscalculation." Smile. "It’s also important for me just as it was for the white house last night by the way to say that the statements were inappropriate, and in my view a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for american values." Smile.) Maybe that's because he knew the kids would love it. The kids being the base, as reflected by conservative bloggers loving Romney's response and calling the murder an act of war by the Libyan government. As he has through out much of his campaign, Romney is defying expectations that he would "tack to the center" after winning the GOP primary. On Wednesday, he played to the same crowd that was so outraged over the "Ground Zero mosque."

"Somebody get some bandages and salve for Obama's press corps - Romney just delivered a thumping," Fox News' Todd Starnes tweeted. "Mitt Romney demonstrates Reaganesque commitment to American resolve in our might. Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan trashes Mitt. WTH?" Michelle Malkin said. Breitbart.com's John Nolte wrote, "If only the Obama campaign could find half the outrage they saved for Romney to level at the murderers." Dan Calabrese wrote for Cain TV -- as in Herman Cain -- "Obama 'strongly condemns' the attack. Let's hope he doesn't seriously think that's all he needs to do." The U.S. responded to the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis "as if there was nothing we could do to them. How did that work out?" And anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, who can always be counted on to write something unsubtle, wrote:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/...dly/56784/

[jaxx]

The rightwing fringe is nuts for trying to say Willard was right to campaign on the deaths. He looks bad, the real media is pounding him.

[jaxx]

Posted at 01:54 PM ET, 09/12/2012
Who is the intended audience here?
By Greg Sargent

Adam Serwer, on the subtext lurking underneath Mitt Romney’s claim that the Obama administration “sympathized" with the attackers:

Romney’s remarks suggest that Obama has very specific personal motivations: When violent religious radicals slaughter Americans, Obama is on the side of the radicals. As it happens, Romney’s statement isn’t coming out of nowhere: It comes out of a very well-developed narrative, popular on the fever swamps of the right where questions about Obama’s citizenship or faith linger. The idea that Obama is driven chiefly by hatred of America and the West and harbors a desire to make America pay for its transgressions is the thesis of Dinesh D’Souza’s recently released film, 2016: Obama’s America.. ..

<..> I continue to wonder: Who are the voters that the Romney campaign sees as their intended audience for this stuff? A reasonably good way to measure whether people are open to the idea that Obama is secretly sympathetic with America’s enemies might be his ratings when it comes to handling terrorism.

<..> What is the Romney campaign trying to accomplish here? Is this all about letting the base know that Romney isn’t afraid to “get tough” with Obama? If so, why is Romney still playing to the base? Or does the Romney camp believe there is a small segment of true undecided voters who — after living with Obama as president for four years — still are open to doubting Obama’s intentions and sympathies towards America?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum..._blog.html

My guess is he's playing to the base....no one else is that stupid.