Think Progress has a very handy and timely feature: You Don’t Know Mitt: 99 Facts About Mitt Romney
Some of my favorites:
4. Mitt Romney set up shell companies in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to avoid U.S. taxes.
8. Mitt Romney’s plan for a “middle class tax cut” would provide zero benefits to 73.9 percent of the middle class.
34. Mitt Romney said that catching bin Laden would be “insignificant” and it’s “not worth moving heaven and earth.”
56. Mitt Romney would “absolutely” support a state constitutional amendment to define life as beginning at conception, which would restrict women’s right to an abortion. (I’ll add: And birth control!)
90. Tea Party billionaire David Koch hosted one of Mitt Romney’s first fundraisers for his 2012 campaign.
Lots more! Configured for easy Tweeting!
That particular quote has been taken out of context and its an “attack” point that is likely to backfire. When you read the whole thing in context it’s a lot more difficult to see Romney’s position as unfounded. Romney said in full (in the MSNBC debate cited by Think Progress):
MR. ROMNEY: Of course we get Osama bin Laden and track him wherever he has to go and make sure he pays for the outrage he exacted on America.
MR. MATTHEWS: Do we move heaven and Earth to do it?
MR. ROMNEY: We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shi’a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate. They also probably want to bring down the United States of America. This is a global effort we’re going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It’s more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die.
MR. MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you, Governor.
especially after standing firmly against exaggeration in another thread.
I was not aware that that was the “Democratic pitch”
Also I’m not so sure that you can group the Muslim Brotherhood with Hamas and al Qaeda. I think it has some moderate elements. It better have, since it will probably play a major role in Egypt.
The “Democratic pitch” argument is certainly spin at best. And the Muslim Brotherhood has moderate elements and generally has renounced jihad.
That aside, the idea that we Democrats can accurately depict Romney as not being in favor of personal revenge against Osama bin Laden is ridiculous. And comes originally from a desperate McCain camp struggling to paint Romney as “soft on terrorists.”
I’d just urge us all to concentrate on better and more accurate lines of attack against Romney in 2012.