Romney Places Politcal Aspirations Ahead Of Country

On April 24, 1980 President Jimmy Carter authorized the US military to conduct a rescue operation on Iranian soil.  The purpose of the mission was to rescue 52 Americans who were being held hostage in the American embassy by Iranian students.  The mission failed when two of the helicopters carrying the strike force crashed killing 8 servicemen.

Then candidate Ronald Reagan could have used incident as a political opportunity to attack President Carter’s leadership.  Instead he chose to back the president’s attempt to rescue the hostages and joined with President Carter in paying tribute to the servicemen who had lost their lives.

We can now say with all certainty that Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.

Twelve hours after issuing a reckless and factually untrue statement critical of the president’s handling of the international incident in Benghazi, Mitt Romney repeated his false assertions.  Even after having the time to assess the true series of events that took place at the Libyan consulate, Romney chose to repeat his lies for the sole purpose of gaining political advantage.

The past several weeks have been nothing but a disaster for the Romney campaign.  His overseas trip was supposed to be an exhibition of his foreign policy credentials.  Instead he offended our closest ally on the eve of the Olympics.  The Republican Convention was supposed to give him a bump in the polls.  It didn’t.  His acceptance speech was supposed to be the platform where he laid out his specific vision for the country.  It wasn’t.  Suddenly what only days earlier has been a tight race turned into a 6 point lead for the President.  

The leaders of Romney’s own party began to publically question his competence; imploring him to be more specific and more aggressive.    Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity chimed in.  Conservative talk show host Laura Ingram offered the most scathing commentary saying:  “If the Republican Party and Mitt Romney cannot defeat this president with this record…then they should shut the party down and start over with all new people.”

Suddenly, in the midst of all this criticism the riots in Cairo and Benghazi appeared like shiny objects before Romney’s eyes.  So eager was he to calm the voices of dissent among the Republican faithful that he recklessly jumped into the fray.  Instead of appearing “presidential” he looked desperate.  He chose to put his failing political aspirations ahead of the country.  He showed a lack of character and judgment.  And though he may posess all the skills necessary to captain a successful business in corporate America; he has shown us once again that is sorly lacking the characteristics necessary to successfully navigate international waters. 

There is more to being president than analyzing balance sheets and formulating a successful business plan.  Mitt Romney just learned that lesson the hard way.         

Mitt Romney has every right to question and criticize the president’s foreign policy.  But the time and the place for that debate is not in the middle of an incendiary international incident where American lives are being lost.

Mitt Romney still has time to win this election.  But if President Romney exhibits the same reckless behavior in handling our foreign affairs as candidate Romney did during the past 24 hours…his inauguration will mark the beginning of a very, very dangerous and volatile period for our country.