President Obama was questioned in a press conference Monday about the appropriateness of celebrating the anniversary of Bin Laden, and took the opportunity to skewer Mitt Romney on his statements about spending billions of dollars to find one man.
“I hardly think that you’ve seen any excessive celebration,” Obama remarked, and continued, “I’d just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and to take out bin Laden,” Obama said alongside Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
Regardless of whether or not running a campaign ad that exalts the president’s decision on the anniversary of a killing may be considered “excessive celebration” or not. He is correct that there has hardly been any excessive celebration by the American People. No parades, no ticker tape, no solemn observances. I wonder why.
Nevertheless, I believe this is a fair shot at Romney, and he might be wise to answer or clarify more publicly his statements.
But what is more interesting in the president’s remarks is his next sentence:
“I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. And that’s been at least my practice.”
Perfect.
Now consider this: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.”
And consider this, after energy prices began their “skyrocket”: “I think that’s good for the world. I actually think, over the long term, it’s good for our economies as well, because it’s my strong belief that industries, utilities, individual consumers — we’re all going to have to adapt how we use energy and how we think about carbon.”
Both statements given by Barack Obama.
So the question is, on election day will Americans care more about a president’s decision to allow a raid on Osama Bin Laden 8,000 miles away; or will they care more about how much it’s costing them to fill up their gas tank, and how much food prices have increased as a result of the rising cost of energy?
I, for one, assume President Obama meant what he said when he said it, and that our current energy prices are just what he wants. Maybe I don’t wonder why people other than the president aren’t celebrating Bin Laden’s death.
