“The only easy day was yesterday.” ~ US Navy SEALs

“To win this fight for America’s future, we will have to rise above politics. When members of SEAL Team VI boarded their helicopters, they did so not as Republicans or Democrats or independents, they did so as Americans. And the final image that Osama bin Laden took with him straight to Hell was not a party symbol – not a Republican elephant or a Democratic donkey – but an American flag on the shoulder of one straight-shooting U.S. Navy SEAL.” ~ Mitt Romney, August 2011

Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) answers a question as Governor Mitt Romney looks on during a Romney rally at an oil company in Milwaukee, WI. April 2, 2012 (Photo Steve Senne/AP)

The third segment of Running With Romney, a series of potential VP interviews by FOX News’ Bret Baier (Special Report) aired today. The spotlight was on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan:

At age 28, Ryan was elected to Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district but he quickly moved up to become the youngest chairman of the House Budget Committee in 2011. Speaking about his budget plan, Ryan says, “We knew that if we offered solutions, that they were going to demagogue those solutions. But we feel that we have a moral and a legal obligation, that if we don’t like the direction the president’s taking the country, we should do something about it.”

Republican strategist Mike Murphy noted a downside if Romney chooses Ryan as his vice presidential nominee, saying, “Paul Ryan budget genius, very important in the Congress, good guy, Romney’s close to him, talks to him a lot. The downside is you nominate Paul, one, you take a real player out of the Congress. And two, you’re going to re-litigate the Ryan plan which has policy advantages but some political baggage.”

Ryan reiterated what he has previously stated when asked about becoming Romney’s running mate. “If they ask me to consider it, then I’ll consider it. But that’s months away from that kind of decision being made as far as I know. I like my job. I think I can make a big difference doing what I’m doing.”

Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) introduces Mitt Romney at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Feb 20, 2012 (Photo by Mark Lyons/Getty Images)

As part of a series of potential VP interviews FOX News’ Bret Baier (Special Report) is promoting, the second installment of Running With Romney aired tonight. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) was showcased:

Republican strategist Mike Murphy weighed in on the possibility of a Romney-Portman ticket. “He can govern, he gets along well with Mitt Romney, and he’s from Ohio a very vital state… And he’s somebody the press knows and has vetted so you don’t get the shock effect.”

Portman was known as the “budget hawk” when he served under the Bush administration. Critics say bringing up those years will not be helpful in the current election cycle. He defended his credentials, saying, “I came in as you know in 2006, 2007 and the budget that I proposed actually was a balanced budget … So the year that I was there, 2007, the deficit was about 1/8 of the deficit today.”

Governor Mitt Romney and wife, Ann, were guests on the CBS This Morning program today. Co-hosts Charlie Rose and Erica Hill conducted the interview.

Part 1 - Romney on Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, Bin Laden death shouldn’t be campaign issue, VP posssibilities:

…Romney said the president “has every right to take credit” for ordering the mission.

Romney added: “At the same time, I think it was very disappointing for the president to try and make this a political item by suggesting that I wouldn’t have ordered such a raid. Of course I would have. Any American — any thinking American — would have ordered exactly the same thing. But of course you give the president the credit for the fact that he did so.”

Part 2 - After hearing, for the umpteenth time, questions about Mitt’s personality, Ann Romney says he’s still “wild and crazy”:

“I still look at him as the boy that I met in high school when he was playing all the jokes and really just being crazy — pretty crazy. So there’s a wild and crazy man inside there.”

Read more…

Mitt Romney and Florida Senator Marco Rubio attend a town hall meeting in Aston, PA.
April 24, 2012

FOX News’ Bret Baier is running a series on his television program (Special Report) in which he interviews potential VP picks for Governor Mitt Romney. He’s dubbed his series Running With Romney. Last night Senator Marco Rubio was the first to be featured. Here’s the interview:

► Jayde Wyatt

Very few things in life ever make me angry. Messrs. Obama, Biden, and Clinton have crossed the line in their gloating and bragging and have gotten my attention.

The issue of President Obama and Vice President Biden boasting of the decision to kill Bin Laden is unbecoming any leader, gentleman, or certainly a President of the United States. I could not let this one go by. Back in February, I wrote this piece about how the Navy SEALs were upset that Mr. Obama would allow leaking of classified information.

Recent news exposes what I consider to be weakness of character of Mr. Obama as he continues to brag about this event while at the same time criticizing Gov. Romney by stating he would not have taken the same action. While Mr. Obama deserves credit for making the decision certainly, he and Governor Romney are miles apart in one very important way. I wish I could shout this from the rooftops! Once a President Romney were to make such a decision, he would NEVER boast about it and he would NEVER create a political television commercial about it. NEVER!

Anybody who has been around or known any person that has served in the armed forces, in any leadership position, knows that they never brag about combat missions (in part because human beings die as a result). And yet our Commander in Chief is doing exactly that! In my opinion, his language and actions this week are absolutely deplorable!

UPDATE: Outstanding WSJ article: Michael Mukasey: Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights — It’s hard to imagine Lincoln or Eisenhower claiming such credit for the heroic actions of others.

Consider this opinion from Breitbart. The article refers to a memo by Panetta and many have referred to Obama’s decision as a “gutsy” call — certainly that is the case in the Clinton narrated ad. The Breitbart article is worth reading in its entirety. Here is an excerpt:

Only the memo doesn’t show a gutsy call. It doesn’t show a president willing to take the blame for a mission gone wrong. It shows a CYA maneuver by the White House.

The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven – the “timing, operational decision making and control” are all up to McRaven. So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect. The hero here was McRaven, not Obama. And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus.

The memo is crystal clear on that point. It says that the decision has been made based solely on the “risk profile presented to the President.” If any other risks — no matter how minute — arose, they were “to be brought back to the President for his consideration.” This is ludicrous. It is wiggle room. It was Obama’s way of carving out space for himself in case the mission went bad. If it did, he’d say that there were additional risks of which he hadn’t been informed; he’d been kept in the dark by his military leaders.

Finally, the memo is unclear on just what the mission is. Was it to capture Bin Laden or to kill him? The White House itself was unable to decide what the mission was in the hours after the Bin Laden kill, and actually switched its language. The memo shows why: McRaven was instructed to “get” Bin Laden, whatever that meant.

President Obama made the right call to give the green light to the mission. But he did it in a way that he could shift the blame if things went wrong. Typical Obama. And typical of him to claim full credit for it, when he didn’t do anything but give a vague nod, while putting his top military officials at risk of taking the hit in case of a bad turn.

MailOnline obtained the opinions of Navy SEALs regarding Obama’s using their mission for political gain — consider:

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.

The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’.
[...]
Mr Obama used a news conference today to trumpet his personal role and imply that his Republican opponent Mr Romney, who in 2008 expressed reservations about the wisdom of sending troops into Pakistan, would have let bin Laden live.
[...]
Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.

Even Arianna Huffington ripped Mr. Obama!

Mr Obama has faced criticism even from allies about his decision to make a campaign ad about the bin Laden raid. Arianna Huffington, an outspoken liberal who runs the left-leaning Huffington Post website, roundly condemned it.

She told CBS: ‘We should celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It’s one thing to have an NBC special from the Situation Room… all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.’
[...]

The article continues:

‘In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander-in-chief so his secret is safe.’
[...]
A former intelligence official who was serving in the US government when bin Laden was killed said that the Obama administration knew about the al-Qaeda leader’s whereabouts in October 2010 but delayed taking action and risked letting him escape.

‘In the end, Obama was forced to make a decision and do it. He knew that if he didn’t do it the political risks in not taking action were huge. Mitt Romney would have made the call but he would have made it earlier — as would George W. Bush.’
[...]
It was ‘stretching a little much’ for Mr Obama to suggest only he would have made the decision. ‘I personally I don’t think Romney would have any problem making tough decisions. He got a very accomplished record of making decision as a business professional.
[...]
Clint Bruce, who gave up the chance of an NFL career to serve as a SEAL officer before retiring as a lieutenant after nine years, said: ‘We were extremely surprised and discouraged by the publicity because it compromises the ability of those guys to operate.

[emphasis added throughout]

Frankly, I am angry. President Obama is accurately credited for the decision he made. But for him to effectively glory in the mission by exploiting the true heroes who made it happen — and to politicize the mission — is beyond the pale. His extremely poor judgment in constantly seeking political gain, using a military operation, speaks volumes of his utter lack of decency while at the same time revealing his character.

Obama, Biden, and Clinton are weak men for using our service men and women in this way.

ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT has released an excellent new video about one of Obama’s broken promises.

But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy.” – Barack Obama, August 28, 2008

Supporting links:

TEXT:”Taxpayer dollars were squandered” after GSA officials spent nearly $1 Million for a lavish conference for only 300 attendees.”

GSA Administrator Martha Johnson admitted in a letter of resignation that her agency had made a ‘significant misstep’ and that ‘taxpayer dollars were squandered.’ A GSA Inspector General’s report on the 2010 GSA ‘Western Regions’ training conference in Las Vegas shows the government spent more than $822,000 for the 300 attendees…” (Lesa Jansen, “GSA Head Resigns Over ‘Wasteful’ Las Vegas Seminar,” CNN, 4/2/12)

TEXT: “Obama’s budget projects that the deficit for the current year will total $1.33 Trillion, the fourth straight year of deficits over $1 Trillion.” Highlights Of Obama’s $3.8 Trillion Budget, The Associated Press, 2/13/12

TEXT: “Under President Obama, the nation’s total public debt has reached a record $15.6 Trillion.”
U.S. Department Of The Treasury, www.treasurydirect.gov, Accessed 4/26/12

► Great video! Let’s get it out there; share it anywhere possible.

By Steve Breen - April 21, 2012

By Michael Ramirez - April 20, 2012

► Jayde Wyatt

To see five reasons Governor Romney will defeat Mr. Obama in November, see article below the political cartoons under the fold.

Bored? Credit: AFP / Getty Images

I can’t believe that I am actually writing about the President of the United States when hearing the jokes at last night’s White House Corresponsdents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. Consider these selected by Mr. Obama, among many others:

Where he was born (this one starts at 3:20, and he actually winked after saying, “And I, of course, was born in Hawaii.”)…Eating dogs (several jokes on this topic)…His rumored, radical, second term agenda…Hillary Clinton’s beer drinking in Colombia (”she won’t stop drunk texting me from Cartagena.”)…Wait, let’s not forget the toilet flush. Did we really need to envision the president sitting on the toilet, seconds before he was to address the White House Press Corps?

Potty jokes as president? Demeaning the Secretary of State? Okay. We learned after Mr. Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize that he and Michelle and friends were disappointed in how he was perceived:

The trip spurred a thought the Obamas and their friends would voice to each other again and again as the president’s popularity continued to decline: the American public just did not appreciate their exceptional leader.

Is it surprising that some Americans are seriously considering leaving our nation in an Atlas Shrugged manner? Or maybe it’s only those from California, which state Mr. Obama seems to be modeling his economic policy after. BTW, consider this CYA truth by Obama in the Bin Laden operation (one tenet of strong leadership is to credit success to others and take responsibility for failures — Obama never learned this).

Newsmax gave us this earlier in the week:

“They’re a very confused campaign right now,” Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades tells Newsmax. “They’ve had years to build out the infrastructure, and they’ve certainly done that. They say they have 700 people. But campaigns are really won on message and the candidates themselves. And they’re a campaign without a message right now.”

UPDATE #1 (hat tip to @Fla4Romney): Obama has held more re-election fundraisers than previous five Presidents combined as he visits key swing states on ‘permanent campaign’

UPDATE #2: From the WSJ: “Obama the Unseemly — A more aggressive press corps might have motivated him to preserve his dignity.”

Peggy Noonan wrote an outstanding opinion piece titled, A BUSH LEAGUE PRESIDENT that is both worrisome regarding Mr. Obama but optimistic regarding Governor Romney:

There is every reason to be deeply skeptical of President Obama’s prospects in November.

Republicans feel an understandable anxiety about Mr. Obama’s coming campaign: It will be all slice and dice, divide and conquer, break the country into little pieces and pick up as many as you can. He’ll try to pick up college students one day and solidify environmentalist support the next, he’ll valorize this group and demonize the other. He means to gather in and hold onto all the pieces he needs, and turn them into a jagged, jangly coalition that will win it for him in November and not begin making individual demands until December.

But it still matters that the president doesn’t have a coherent agenda, or a political philosophy that is really clear to people. To the extent he has a philosophy, it tends to pop up furtively in stray comments and then go away. This is to a unique degree a presidency of inference, its overall meaning never vividly declared. In some eras, that may be a plus. In this one?

She mentions the power of incumbency and continues and nails it, spot on. She so perfectly describes what you can see in his eyes and demeanor, as she admits that what she is about to write is rude: Read more…

Following the NYT story on Mitt Romney’s 36 year friendship with Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to shake off any sort of affiliation with Romney or even criticize Obama – in order not be accused by the media or seen in public as intervening in the general election. But we all know what he really thinks of President Obama. And from his muted comments, there are more than some hints, that these two men, Romney and Netanyahu, share a lot in common and that a President Romney will be more than a pleasant wish come true for the Israeli government.

Posted by:

Jacob Kornbluh is a political correspondent for the Jewish Voice newspaper in Brooklyn, and host of the popular online radio program The Bibi Report and Believe in America radio. You can read his blog at JacobKornbluh.com, or follow him on Twitter: @jacobkornbluh

RNC Chair Reince Priebus

WaPo:

Less than 24 hours after sweeping five primaries and declaring the Republican presidential nomination fight officially over, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee are moving quickly to coordinate their efforts.

“Governor Romney’s strong performance and delegate count at this stage of the primary process has made him our party’s presumptive nominee,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “In order to maximize our efforts I have directed my staff at the RNC to open lines of communication with the Romney campaign.”

The leading edge of the synchronization will be four liaisons between the two organizations. Brian Jones, who has been serving as an adviser to Romney since late last year, will lead that effort. Kevin Madden, who served as the press secretary for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, will advise the communications operation and serve as a DC-based television surrogate for the Romney/RNC effort. Ward Baker, a veteran Tennessee-based GOP strategist, will help coordinate the political and field teams. Ron Kaufman, a veteran RNC member, and Ben Ginsberg, who served as national counsel to Romney’s 2008 race, will also facilitate interaction between the two groups.

From the beginning of the Romney’s primary campaign they stated that his planning and fundraising would be designed to perform a long slog through the primary season in order to win the nomination. They have done just that and a new election season begins. For many Romney diehards this moment has been six years in the making. For myself it almost seems surreal that it is finally happening.

The time has come to rally around the nominee. Please consider donating to Romney’s campaign what you can. Maybe pick up some promotional t-shirts and bumpers stickers too. Learn where and how you can volunteer to help the campaign. It’s only six and a half months until election day – let’s gear up for a tough fight now. You can start by watching Mitt’s speech from last night’s victories.

MRC Announcement: I’m pleased to inform you that my brother Luke Gunderson and I, along with staff writer David Parker, were elected as alternate national delegates for the RNC convention in Tampa and will be attending it in August. We look forward to doing some live blogging and tweeting directly from the big event.

~Nate Gunderson

UPDATE: The RNC has made good on their word to help Romney and have done so extremely quickly. Check out the new video they made entitled A Tale of Two Leaders