Obama campaign: Romney has harmed US interests abroad

{mosads}“Part of America’s role in the Middle East … is to play a constructive role in the peace process. It’s important for our interests and it’s essential for Israel’s security both now and in the future.”

Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, now a senior adviser with Obama for America, called the trip “nothing short of an embarrassing disaster.”

“The concerns raised by this trip keep coming up and keep coming in. We’ve now seen Gov. Romney on the world stage, and … he both offended our closest ally and triggered a troubling reaction in the most sensitive region of the world,” Gibbs said. “He certainly didn’t prove to anyone that he passed the commander-in-chief test.”

Romney defended his trip on Fox News Tuesday, accusing the media of purposefully trying to undermine him in favor of Obama. 

“I realize that there will be some in the fourth estate or in whichever estate who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geo-politics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran,” Romney told Fox News. “They’ll instead try to find anything else to divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough years for our country.”

Democrats said the damage was self-inflicted.

“If Romney can’t handle our special relationship with the British on the eve of the Olympic Games, what’s going to happen when he has to deal with our enemies?” Kahl said. “Here, he struck out playing Tee Ball.”