McCain: Obama "politicizing" death of bin Laden
Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, released a statement Friday attacking President Obama for what was described in a press release as the president's "decision to play politics with the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death."
"Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad," McCain said. "This is the same President who once criticized Hillary Clinton for invoking bin Laden 'to score political points.'"
The ad McCain is referencing is a video from the Obama campaignin which former President Bill Clinton credits Mr. Obama for making a hard choice to go after the terrorist leader. The ad suggests presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not have approved the risky mission.
"This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't 'spike the ball' after the touchdown," McCain said in the statement. "And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected. No one disputes that the President deserves credit for ordering the raid, but to politicize it in this way is the height of hypocrisy."
The criticism doesn't end there. Read McCain's full statement below.
"Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad. This is the same President who once criticized Hillary Clinton for invoking bin Laden 'to score political points.'"This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't 'spike the ball' after the touchdown. And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected.
"No one disputes that the President deserves credit for ordering the raid, but to politicize it in this way is the height of hypocrisy.
"The Obama campaign asks whether Mitt Romney would have made that decision. Of course they want to focus on this one tactical decision because the other decisions this President has made have harmed our national security.
"He turned his back on the people of Iran when they rose up to end their tyrannical, terrorist-supporting, Holocaust-denying government, giving them no assistance as they were crushed in the streets.
"He has repeatedly thrown our ally Israel under the bus and jeopardized our shared security interests.
"He tried to bring Khaled Sheikh Muhammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and other Al-Qaeda terrorists into the middle of New York City to stand trial in a civilian court.
"He disregarded the advice of his military commanders and pulled all of our troops out of Iraq, and Al-Qaeda is making a comeback there as a result.
"He disregarded the advice of his military commanders again by telling our enemies that we are leaving Afghanistan and then putting our mission and our troops at risk by short-changing our commanders on the ground.
"He watches passively while the Assad regime in Syria, Iran's closest ally, kills thousands of its own people in an unfair fight, and his response to this mass atrocity is to create an 'Atrocities Prevention Board.'
"With a record like that on national security, it is no wonder why President Obama is shamelessly turning the one decision he got right into a pathetic political act of self-congratulation."