Father of murdered US ambassador to Romney: Leave my kid alone

10/14/2012 2:58pm by 409

Mitt Romney, holding a roundly-criticized press conference the morning after our officials were slain in Libya.

The father of slain US ambassador to Libya, Christophers, is calling for politicians to stop making the death of his son into a campaign issue.

And there’s only one campaign, and one political party, that’s been treating the murder of our ambassador as an “opportunity,” and that’s Mitt Romney and the Republicans.

First, the father:

The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.

“It would really be abhorrent to make this into a campaign issue,” Jan Stevens, 77, said in a telephone interview from his home in Loomis, California, as he prepares for a memorial service for his son next week.

In an earlier post, I walked you through exactly how the Romney campaign, and Republicans overall, have been politicizing Stevens’ death.  Here’s an excerpt:

1. It was the Romney campaign that told AP that they saw the death of the US ambassador as an “opportunity.”

2. It was Mitt Romney himself who said on the infamous 47% tape that he would keep his eye out for another “opportunity” like the Iran hostage crisis, that he could milk to his electoral advantage.

3. It was Mitt Romney himself, who embarrassingly, in his best Al “I’m in charge” Haig, had the audacity to issue a statement blasting the administration in the middle of the Libya crisis, before we even knew who was killed, or how many. As you’ll recall, Romney was roundly criticized for politicizing the death of the US ambassador and others through his statement and poorly-timed press conference, and he was even criticized by Republicans.

To show you just how cavalier Romney was about the deaths, note how, purely by chance I’m sure, Romney’s backdrop for his press conference, below left, looked a lot like the White House briefing room, below right.  Blue background, the flag, the podium, the dais. The setting was clearly meant to evoke the White House Briefing Room, and thus use Romney’s speech as an – let’s say it all together now – “opportunity” to make Romney look “presidential.”

4. It was Mitt Romney who was blasted yesterday by the mother of one of the victims in Libya, an American Navy SEAL, for politicizing the death of her son.

5. And then yesterday, the House Republicans, led by GOP Reps. Issa and Chaffetz, again politicized the deaths in Libya by holding a partisan hearing in order to embarrass the Obama administration, and as a result Issa and Chaffetz compromised national security by exposing the existence of a classified CIA base at the site of the attack in Benghazi, Libya, potentially putting even more lives at risk.

Then, last week we had a Republican group in Florida use a photo of Ambassador Stevens’ limp corpse in a despicable campaign ad.

And now we have the father of a US ambassador, the second family member of someone killed in this tragedy, calling on the Republicans to stop treating the murder of American government officials as an “opportunity” to score political points.

Mitt Romney said he’d keep his eyes open for another “opportunity” where American lives are in danger. And he’s found it.

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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