Politics

Arianna Huffington rips Obama for Osama ad: ‘One of the most despicable things’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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Who would have seen this coming?

On Monday’s “CBS This Morning,” Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington condemned President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign for an ad questioning whether or not presumtive GOP nominee Mitt Romney would have killed Osama bin Laden.

The campaign ad features former President Bill Clinton applauding Obama, and takes what some say are Romney’s own words out of context to score political points. The Romney campaign condemned the ad and Huffington agreed.

“I agree with the Romney campaign,” she said.

“Using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing, the great news we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney may not have done it, which is really the — which is the message — I don’t think there should be an ad about that. I think it’s one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It’s one thing to have an NBC special from the ‘Situation Room’ … all of that is perfectly legitimate. But to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.”

Huffington likened it to a 2008 campaign ad from Hillary Clinton questioning if Obama would have the wherewithal to react properly to a hypothetical emergency 3 a.m. phone call.

“It’s the same thing Hillary Clinton did with the 3 a.m. call — you know, ‘You’re not ready to be commander-in-chief,’” she continued. “It’s also what makes politicians and political leaders act irrationally when it comes to matters of war because they’re so afraid to be called wimps, that they make decisions, which are incredible destructive for the country. I’m sure the president would not have escalated in Afghanistan if he was not as concerned, as Democrats are, that Republicans are going to use not escalating against him in a campaign.”

Huffington argued that the ad went beyond merely celebrating one of Obama’s chief accomplishments.

“That’s not just what the ad does,” she said. “[The ad] quotes a snippet from Romney and uses that to imply that Romney would not has been as decisive. There’s no way to know whether Romney would have been as decisive. To actually speculate that he wouldn’t be is to me not the way to run a campaign on either side.”

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