The Romney campaign organized a press call this morning to go after the Obama administration on foreign policy, and the leading surrogate was none other than Den Senor, the Bush/Cheney flack who spoke for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq soon after the U.S. invasion.
We’ll get back to Senor’s role on Team Romney a little later, but something he said this morning struck me as interesting.
Hmm. So to hear the Romney campaign tell it, President Obama did the right thing, and imposed tough sanctions on Iran — much tougher than anything we saw from the Bush administration — but no one should give Obama too much credit for this because the president had to be “dragged” into doing the right thing.
This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Senor is contradicting the Republican nominee himself, who’s argued publicly that Obama didn’t impose these sanctions at all. Team Romney can say the sanctions don’t exist, or they can say they do, but they can’t say both.
Second, and more important, is the fact that the Romney campaign is attacking Obama for taking a position Romney agrees with.
This keeps happening. Two weeks ago, the Romney campaign complained bitterly about Obama approving a free-trade agreement with Colombia — which Romney also supported. Similarly, Karl Rove’s attack operation, American Crossroads, recently launched attack ads in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, slamming Obama for not doing enough for the coal industry. In reality, not only has the president invested heavily in “clean coal technology,” but coal production is up over the last three years, employment in the coal-mining industry is the highest it’s been since 1997, and U.S. coal exports have soared, reaching levels unseen in decades. In other words, American Crossroads is bashing Obama for doing what the right hoped he’d do. It’s not identical to the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” tactic Romney is so fond of, but it’s certainly close. Given all that Democrats and Republicans have to fight about, isn’t it odd that Republicans keep complaining about Obama agreeing with Republicans?
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