Debate fact check: President Obama did call Benghazi attack “act of terror” in his first statement on the tragedy
At last night’s debate, Mitt Romney tried to rewrite what and when President Obama spoke about the attack in Benghazi. Candy Crowley correctly fact-checked the former Governor.
ROMNEY: I think it’s interesting that the president just said something which is on the day after the attack he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
OBAMA: That’s what I said.
ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration? Is that what you’re saying?
OBAMA: Please proceed governor.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
OBAMA: Get the transcript.
CROWLEY: He did in fact sir, so let me call it an act of terror and —
OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder Candy?
CROWLEY: He did call it an act of terror. It did as well two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out, you’re correct about that.
Here is the actual statement the President made the day after the attack. Check the video at the 4:19 mark.
OBAMA: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”
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Obama Pride: LGBT Americans for President Obama
Jane Lynch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billie Jean King, George Takei, Wanda Sykes, Zachary Quinto, and Chaz Bono share why they’re supporting President Obama and why Mitt Romney isn’t the choice for them.
Morgan Freeman narrates new Obama campaign ad
Text from the ad: “Every president inherits challenges, few have faced so many. Four years later our enemies have been brought to justice. Our heroes are coming home. Assembly lines are humming again—there are still challenges to meet, children to educate, a middle class to rebuild but the last thing we should do is turn back now.”
Bruce Springsteen to campaign for President Obama
Bruce Springsteen will join former President Bill Clinton at a rally in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday, the day of the second presidential debate. Obama will not attend the rally.
“The Boss” campaigned for Obama in 2008, but this is his first political appearance of the 2012 cycle.
Clinton has become an increasingly prominent surrogate for Obama, campaigning for the president in several battleground states.
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Campaign ad: “Reckless”
President Bartlett schools Obama on how to handle a debate
From Maureen Dowd’s column in today’s New York Times, Aaron Sorkin imagines the post-debate coaching session between President Obama and “West Wing” President Josiah Bartlett, while in another room fictional news anchor Will McAvoy hold Jim Lehrer in a wresting hold.
Just an excerpt:
BARTLET They told you to make sure you didn’t seem condescending, right? They told you, “First, do no harm,” and in your case that means don’t appear condescending, and you bought it. ’Cause for the American right, condescension is the worst crime you can commit.
OBAMA What’s your suggestion?
BARTLET Appear condescending. Now it comes naturally to me —
OBAMA I know.
BARTLET It’s a gift, but I’m likable and you’re likable enough. Thirty straight months of job growth — blown off. G.M. showing record profits — unmentioned. “Governor, would you still let Detroit go bankrupt as you urged us to do four years ago?” — unasked. (shouting) I’m talkin’ to you, too, Lehrer!
WILL (in the other room) I got him, sir!
BARTLET All right! (back to OBAMA) And that was quite a display of hard-nosed, fiscal conservatism when he slashed one one-hundredth of 1 percent from the federal budget by canceling “Sesame Street” and “Downton Abbey.” I think we’re halfway home. Mr. President, your prep for the next debate need not consist of anything more than learning to pronounce three words: “Governor, you’re lying.” Let’s replay some of Wednesday night’s more jaw-dropping visits to the Land Where Facts Go to Die. “I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale you’re talking about.”
OBAMA The Tax Policy Center analysis of your proposal for a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, the estate tax and other reductions, says it would be a $5 trillion tax cut.
BARTLET In other words …
OBAMA You’re lying, Governor.
Video: “Why Obama Now”
An animated short about the big choice in 2012’s presidential election – by Simpsons / Family Guy animator Lucas Gray.
Also available at http://whyobamanow.org/
President Obama raises $181 million in September for campaign
President Barack Obama’s campaign and Democrats have raised $181 million combined in September, pulling in the most money in one month during his re-election bid.
Obama says in a message on the online social network Twitter that more than 1.8 million people donated in September, including more than a half-million who had not donated before in 2008 or 2012.
President Obama on the “spirited fellow” who debated him last night
While campaigning today, President Obama told a gathered crowd that the Mitt Romney he debated last night was a new version of the Republican presidential hopeful. He was a more “spirited fellow” than the real former governor, said Obama.
“When I got on the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” Obama told supporters. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn’t know anything about that.”
The man on stage last night does not want to be held accountable for the real Mitt Romney’s decisions and what he’s been saying for the last year. And that’s because he knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been selling for the last year.
So Governor Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be president you owe the American people the truth.