Justin's Political Corner

During the past several weeks of campaigning, Mitt Romney has argued that President Obama’s supposed failure to label the killing of Benghazi “terrorism” for two weeks was evidence that he had failed to lead on the issue. After Candy Crowley debunked Romney’s claim during the Tuesday debate, the right doubled down on Romney’s argument, suggesting Obama only used the term “act of terror” generally despite clear references to Benghazi on September 12 and 13.

Setting aside the dubious propriety of this semantic standard for leadership, it turns out Romney himself has failed on these terms: Obama managed to label the attacks terrorism twice in the two days following the attacks before Romney used the term once.

The first unmistakeable reference to terrorism from the Romney campaign came on September 20, after top counterterrorism officials had publicly described the attacks as terrorism. The first clear statement from Romney himself was on September 25, when he told Fox News that the Benghazi attack was “an act of terror. … But the White House doesn’t want to admit it.”

h/t: Zach Beauchamp at Think Progress Security