It seems so long ago- but was only late last month- that during a GOP presidential debate (making the same claim on Face the Nation, below)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed President Barack Obama for allegedly failing to support police officers.
“The president's appointed FBI director has said this week that, because of a lack of support from politicians like the president of the United States, that police officers are afraid to get out of their cars and enforce the law,” Christie said....
“When the president gets up to speak about it, does he support police officers? Does he stand up for law enforcement? No, he doesn't,” Christie continued. “I'll tell you this: the number one job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of the American people. This president has failed. And when I'm in the Oval Office, police officers will know they have the support of the president of the United States. That is real moral authority we need in the office.”
Approximately eight weeks earlier
“Cops across this country are feeling the assault,” Cruz said Tuesday after a presidential campaign event in Milford, New Hampshire.
“They’re feeling the assault from the president,” the senator continued. “From the top on down, as we see — whether it’s in Ferguson or Baltimore — the response of senior officials of the president, of the attorney general, is to vilify law enforcement. That is fundamentally wrong, and it is endangering the safety and security of us all.”
The presidential candidate made the remarks after he was asked about the shooting death of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth, who was shot 15 times at close range Friday night at a gas station near Houston — Cruz’s hometown.
Cruz complained about Obama’s “silence” on the 47-year-old deputy’s slaying, saying the president was “completely wrong” and displayed the “manifestation of the divisiveness, the partisanship and of the hostility to law enforcement that has characterized the entire Obama administration.”
If that was hostility toward law enforcement, consider how hostile the anti-abortion Robert Lewis Dear was when he apparently murdered police officer Garrett Swasey Friday in Colorado Springs. That is some serious hostility but the pro-life Cruz, responding to the death of the officer and two employees of Planned Parenthood, was able merely to tweet "Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs." Carefully chosen words, they can be trotted out following the next deadly tornado, earthquake, train crash, or mass shooting.
They are, however, more than the straight-talkin', swashbuckling Chris Christie has been able to utter since the crime. With no evidence, in October he accused the President of encouraging violence against police officers because Obama refuses to asume police officers are infallible. Rarely at a loss for words or reluctant to pose as a defender of law enforcement, Christie has turned silent about the killing spree at Planned Parenthood.
More Republican candidates should speak out forcefully against the murderous rampage in Colorado, if only to pretend they really are pro-life or appalled by terrorism, whatever its source. On second thught- why pretend? With little likelihood non-Muslim Dear will be recognized by the media as a terrorist, they may as well continue to check at the door what little compassion they have.
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