By Eric Fehrnstrom
Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Magazine weighs in on Mitt Romney’s Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” where he denounced the “brutal crackdown” following last week’s phony vote.
As Rubin notes, Romney also looked at Obama’s shifting rhetoric on a nuclear
I am not the only one pointing out Obama’s about face on
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"Former United States attorney Chris Christie captured the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial nomination Tuesday night, setting the stage for what will be a closely-watched general election battle with the state’s vulnerable Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine."
Governor Romney was a guest on the Hugh Hewitt radio program to talk about Cheney's and Obama's dueling security speeches.
Governor Romney on the Hugh Hewitt Show 5/21/09
HH: Joining us to discuss both, former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. Governor Romney, welcome, always a pleasure.
MR: Thank you, good to be with you again.
HH: What did you make of these two speeches today?
MR: Well, they were very much in contrast with one another. In the case of Dick Cheney, you have a person who has served, who was in the administration at the time America was attacked who saw 3,000 lives taken, he has no political ambition at this point, and frankly, he’s not terribly concerned about legacy, because that’s something which will be meted out over the coming decades. And so he spoke entirely from the heart, and he spoke clearly, directly, convincingly. Barack Obama is still very a politician on a campaign trail. He really has not yet made the transition from politician to president, and I thought his remarks were extraordinarily twisted and disjointed. And a careful examination of them would find that they’re quite inaccurate as well.
HH: One of his big arguments is we’ve got to close Guantanamo Bay, Governor Romney, because it’s a recruiting tool for terrorists. How do you assess the quality of that argument?
MR: Well, it’s frankly a pretty funny and silly argument to make. The terrorists are combating governments all over the world from Indonesia to Nigeria, and of course in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. This is an effort to overthrow moderate Muslim governments and other governments that are friendly to human rights and to freedom. And Guantanamo is just one of the many, many items that they have on their litany of objections, but of course they want to eliminate Israel, they want to overthrow the United States, they want to establish a religious caliphate. And to somehow think that by giving in to some small thing that they want, that that means they will be less able to attack us or less able to recruit is frankly the height of silliness, and President Obama knows it. There’s no good reason for closing Guantanamo. We are going to have prisoners that are individuals who are enemy combatants, and we have to put them somewhere. And there will always be an objection that we’re holding their prisoners.
HH: Governor Romney, there was an argument in the President’s speech today, look, we already have terrorists in places like Supermax, and he implied that he’s going to send them to Colorado. And then I had one of his lefty drones call up and say we already have terrorists…this is going to be the talking point. But of course it ignores scale and it ignores the nature of these terrorists. Do you think that it is wise to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his colleagues at Guantanamo Bay anywhere in the United States?
MR: I don’t see any reason for saying that we have a very substantial prison facility in Guantanamo, and I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. It’s a very large prison complex, it is effectively managed, it’s a place from which escape is virtually impossible. And to say we’re going to close that for what reason? It makes the Europeans happy, and it makes some liberals happy, but we’re going to continue to interrogate these people, I certainly hope, and bringing them onto our shores has the potential of increasing their rights under the Constitution. And these people don’t deserve rights under the Constitution. And of course, they may well spread their hatred to prisoners within our prison system. It just doesn’t make sense. And by the way, what’s President Obama going to do with all of the enemy combatants that we have in our bases in places like Afghanistan? Is he going to be bringing them here to the United States as well and giving them lawyers in New York? I mean, we’ve always had people who we capture in conflicts, and we don’t put them through our legal system.
Two speeches, two very different men. Former Vice President Cheney seeks no political future. He speaks from the vantage of one who witnessed the killing of our fellow citizens, who deliberated and defined the strategy that would successfully prevent further murders of our fellow Americans.
Originally posted on National Review Online
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