ABC News’ The Note suggested this morning that Mitt Romney “looked presidential” during last night’s debate, but he also appeared “a smidge too pat in listing obscure terrorist groups.” As a substantive matter, it’s considerably worse than The Note made it sound. Chris Matthews asked Romney about his recent comments that it’s not worth the expense to “move heaven and earth” just to get Osama bin Laden. Romney responded:
“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.”
Putting aside the tough-guy bravado, Romney’s comments don’t stand up well to even minimal scrutiny. He wasn’t “listing obscure terrorist groups”; he was listing well-known groups badly.
As Brad Plumer explained, “The Muslim Brotherhood is a large, complex organization. Some of its radical wings may engage in various unsavory activities. But the bulk of the movement has renounced violent jihad and, in places like Egypt, made a point to participate in elections…. Not only that, but they represent a broad swath of ‘mainstream’ Islam. Lumping them in with Al Qaeda is a terrible idea.”
For that matter, the Bush administration has approved some diplomatic outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood. To hear Romney tell it, Bush is cooperating with a known terrorist group.
The reality is, Romney doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
One gets the sense that maybe Romney thought he’d show off. He’d name a bunch of Islamic groups in the Middle East and guys who work at The Note would be impressed that the former governor of Massachusetts would be able to name “obscure terrorist groups” off the top of his head.
But in Romney’s case, this is superficial and uninformed memorization. He’s articulating a national security strategy that conflates groups, sects, and agendas that have nothing to do with one another. As Spencer Ackerman summarized: “Mitt Romney’s War: the total conflation of all Islamist movements…. Suffice it to say that there is no caliphate on heaven or earth that will simultaneously satisfy Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which goes a long way toward explaining why there is no concerted ‘worldwide jihadist effort’ by these groups to establish one.”
Kevin Drum added:
Unfortunately…nobody seems to care. Romney sounds like he’s being tough on the bad guys, and he managed to mention a whole bunch of Middle Eastern-ish stuff without mispronouncing any of it, which probably gets him points for being on the ball. But gibberish is gibberish, no matter how good your haircut is.
I know it drives the right crazy to pose questions like this, but I wonder what would have happened if a leading Democratic presidential candidate had flubbed a serious national-security question this badly in such a high-profile setting. Would the media report it? Would Fox News ever stop reporting it?