Barack Obama’s general election campaign wasted no time in playing the bin Laden card against Mitt Romney.
Ari MelberThe Obama campaign launched a harsh and potentially controversial foreign policy attack against Mitt Romney on Friday, suggesting the presumptive Republican nominee would not have made the “hard” decision to order the operation against Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan.
The charge, narrated by former President Bill Clinton in what the campaign called “never-before-seen footage,” was leveled in a somber, ninety-second video released on YouTube. The Obama campaign has aggressively used YouTube to reach both base and swing voters this campaign cycle, and the combative video is sure to generate (free) media attention. The campaign distributed a press release about the spot Friday morning—most of the campaign’s videos do not receive such promotion—and within an hour the Romney campaign responded, calling it “sad” to see Obama exploiting “an event that unified our country to once again divide us.”
In the bin Laden video, former President Clinton flatly revisits the substantive and political risks that Obama faced in ordering the mission. The target could have turned out not to have been bin Laden, Clinton says, or the Navy Seals might have been “captured or killed.” Yet Obama took a harder and more honorable path, Clinton declares, followed by a rhetorical question that flashes across the screen, asking, “Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?” Adding oppo to injury, the video cites Romney’s 2007 criticism of Obama’s vow to strike Al Qaeda facilities in Pakistan if neccessary—a question of strategy and sovereignty that was a major policy debate in the 2008 Democratic primary and presidential election.
The focus on bin Laden comes a day after Vice President Biden headlined a speech questioning Romney’s foreign policy positions, and fits Obama’s longstanding emphasis on running on foreign policy issues, not away from them—a break from the “inoculation” strategy favored by many Democratic candidates. So while Obama always outlined his opposition to the Iraq War, he also pledged to increase forces in Afghanistan, project special forces wherever necessary and continue a range of national security policies associated with the Bush administration. (Many of the tradeoffs have been troubling.) But if there was any question about whether he would be shy about seeking the political dividends from that agenda in a general election, this opening salvo makes it clear he is eager to put Mitt Romney on the defensive.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.