Just several hours after Mitt Romney accused President Obama of politicizing the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, the GOP presidential candidate was at a New York City event with former mayor Rudy Guiliani — marking the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death.
Romney was campaigning with Giuliani at the firehouse where the city set up its first response center in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It was an event intended to burgeon Romney’s foreign policy credentials while pushing back at Obama and his campaign, which suggested Romney wouldn’t have given the order to a team of Navy Seals to enter Pakistan to take out bin Laden.
But Romney’s remarks on the street outside the firehouse were overshadowed by a female heckler, who repeatedly screamed, “Mitt Romney is a racist!” as the presumptive Republican candidate gave brief remarks and took questions. While never explicitly acknowledged by Romney, the protester was clearly audible on television broadcasts of the event, and the former governor spoke for just around five minutes before hurrying into a nearby SUV.
Media reports said the heckler was associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Romney was asked about the Obama campaign’s charges during the question and answer period, but partially sidestepped, focusing instead on his previous critique of Obama openly acknowledging that he would travel into Pakistan, if necessary, to capture Bin Laden.
The Obama campaign has pointed out that in 2007, Romney said “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
“It was naïve of the president to announce he would go into Pakistan,” Romney said. Romney went on to say “many people” at that time shared that view and that while “we reserve the right to go where we feel is appropriate” to capture terrorist leaders, he didn’t believe it was well-advised to advertise that fact.
