A controversial adviser to the Obama administration warned in late 2012 that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was a liar, and encouraged the Obama administration to highlight that trait as an example of how Romney wasn’t ready to be in the White House.
Sidney Blumenthal told White House adviser Ron Klain just weeks before the 2012 election that Romney should be hit hard for his “lies.”
“Romney will inevitably falsify, distort and mangle facts on a range of subjects from Libya to the defense budget,” Blumenthal wrote in a memo released early Friday as part of the State Department’s dispatch of emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“In the dedicated foreign policy debate, the stakes are higher — America’s role in the world,” Blumenthal wrote. “That makes Romney’s errors even more consequential and potentially threatening.”
“When Romney lies on domestic policy it’s shameful, but when he lies on foreign policy it’s dangerous,” he added.
Blumenthal encouraged Klain to get Obama to say Romney’s “lies” show he’s “unprepared,” which he said was a “potentially lethal” word to describe Romney.
At issue was Romney’s attempt to argue in an October 2012 debate that it took several weeks before President Obama called the attack in Benghazi, Libya, an act of terrorism. Obama said in the debate that he called it terrorism immediately.
CNN moderator Candy Crowley backed up Obama’s assertion, to the frustration of conservatives who noted that Obama didn’t immediately call the attack an “act of terrorism.”
“Romney’s attack line on Libya is not only false, as exposed in the last debate. (Obama here can joke that Romney apparently wants to rerun the last debate but this time without Candy Crowley present to call him out. Romney will become angry and nonplussed.),” Blumenthal wrote.
