The father of slain US ambassador to Libya, Christophers, is calling
for politicians to stop making the death of his son into a campaign
issue.
And there’s only one campaign, and one political party, that’s been
treating the murder of our ambassador as an “opportunity,” and that’s
Mitt Romney and the repugicans.
First, the father:
The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to
Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his
son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.
“It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,”
Jan Stevens, 77, said in a telephone interview from his home in
Loomis, California, as he prepares for a memorial service for his son
next week.
In an earlier post, I walked you through exactly how the Romney
campaign, and repugicans overall, have been politicizing Stevens’
death. Here’s an excerpt:
1. It was the Romney campaign that told AP that they saw the death of the US ambassador as an “opportunity.”
2. It was Mitt Romney himself who said on the infamous 47% tape that he would keep his eye out for another “opportunity” like the Iran hostage crisis, that he could milk to his electoral advantage.
3. It was Mitt Romney himself, who embarrassingly, in his best Al
“I’m in charge” Haig, had the audacity to issue a statement blasting the
administration in the middle of the Libya crisis, before we even knew
who was killed, or how many. As you’ll recall, Romney was roundly criticized for politicizing the death of the US ambassador and others through his statement and poorly-timed press conference, and he was even criticized by repugicans.
To show you just how cavalier Romney was about the deaths, note how, purely by chance I’m sure,
Romney’s backdrop for his press conference, below left, looked a lot
like the White House briefing room, below right. Blue background, the
flag, the podium, the dais. The setting was clearly meant to evoke the
White House Briefing Room, and thus use Romney’s speech as an – let’s
say it all together now – “opportunity” to make Romney look
“presidential.”
4. It was Mitt Romney who was blasted yesterday by the mother of one of the victims in Libya, an American Navy SEAL, for politicizing the death of her son.
5. And then yesterday, the House repugicans, led by repugican Reps. Issa and Chaffetz, again politicized the deaths in Libya by holding a partisan hearing in order to embarrass the Obama administration,
and as a result Issa and Chaffetz compromised national security by
exposing the existence of a classified CIA base at the site of the
attack in Benghazi, Libya, potentially putting even more lives at risk.
Then, last week we had a repugican group in Florida use a photo of Ambassador Stevens’ limp corpse in a despicable campaign ad.
And now we have the father of a US ambassador, the second family
member of someone killed in this tragedy, calling on the repugicans to
stop treating the murder of American government officials as an
“opportunity” to score political points.
Mitt Romney said he’d keep his eyes open for another “opportunity” where American lives are in danger. And he’s found it.
Who
wants to listen to complaints? Sometimes you have no choice, but when
you spent time listening to people complaining, you tend to develop a
negative attitude. Author Trevor Blake cites some research in his book Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life.
