Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign has dog piled on Barack Obama after the President told 60 Minutes that he considered the unrest in the Middle East to be “bumps in the road” and that there is unnecessary “noise” surrounding the growing tension between Iran and Israel.
“On the eve of his United Nations address, President Obama’s foreign policy is in disarray,” Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams said in a statement. “As anti-American protests rage in the Middle East and Iran moves closer toward nuclear weapons capability, President Obama seems more focused on winning a second term than rebuilding America’s strength and position in the world.”
Williams noted that the President’s bumps in the road remarks was a flippant reference to the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
Compounding on the assertion, the Romney campaign also released statements from former Representative to the UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Senator Norm Coleman accusing the Presidency of taking a far too lenient position on Iran.
“These comments offer just the latest indication that President Obama doesn’t fully grasp the seriousness of the foreign policy challenges facing our nation,” Bolton said.
The White House challenged the Republican characterization of the remarks during Monday’s briefing with Press Secretary Jay Carney.
In response to the umbrage taken with the “bumps in the road remarks,” Carney said that Obama was simply trying to say that “progress will not always come in a straight line” while some Middle Eastern countries shift to democracy.
Carney added that the suggestion the President was referring to Stevens’ death was “desperate and offensive.”
