| Obama Surprises Agitated Press Corp. |
| Aug-20-2012 |
| Keywords: obama, press conference, white house, press corp, romney, syria, abortion |
Amid mounting criticism that President Obama has been ducking the White House press corp., Mr. Obama held a surprise press conference, answering questions ranging from the campaign to his view on the crisis in Syria.
The unscheduled appearance came amid mounting criticism that the president has been ducking the White House press corp., while his Republican rivals been speaking on a regular basis with his traveling press corp.
The president attempted to use his impromptu appearance to set the record straight regarding a super PAC ad that implied Mitt Romney played a role in the death of a steelworker's wife.
"I don't think Governor Romney was somehow responsible for the death of that woman," said Obama, who also made clear he didn't approve the ad.
This was the president's first press conference in nearly two months. Since that last appearance he's been taking questions from news outlets like People magazine, Entertainment Tonight and a local-radio station in which he talked about his favorite chili.
Responding to a question regarding the internal conflict in Syria, President Obama said the introduction of chemical or biological weapons might force the U.S. to take military action.
The president also was critical about the recent comment by Rep. Todd Akin, the GOP Senate candidate in Missouri who suggested pregnancy often does not result from "legitimate rape."
"Rape is rape and the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me," Obama said.
Not to waste an opportunity, the president outlined what he considers to be sharp contrasts between his the television ads being run by his campaign and that of his rival.
Among those issues are Romney releasing two years of tax returns, said Obama. However, he took issue with a reporter question about the Obama campaign implying Romney would have committed a felony if he submitted misleading information on federal documents about his Bain tenure.
"Nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon," the president said. "If you look at the overall trajectory of our campaign, and the ads I've approved ... we point out sharp differences between candidates, but we don't go out of bounds."
However a quick look back into the July news cycle, it wasn't too hard to find Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter contradicting the president's claim; "Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony."
Obama quickly pivoted to say a Romney campaign ad seriously mischance his position on work and welfare.
"You've got Governor Romney creating as a centerpiece of his campaign this notion that we're taking the work requirement out of welfare, which every single person here who's looked at it says is patently false," Obama said.
At issue is a recent step by the administration on welfare rules. |
|
|
Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 7:00 PM Email to a friend |
| < Back to Today's Issues |
|
 |
|
|
|
