WATCH, READ: Sen. John McCain Goes "Olbermann" On Obama

I was struck by Arizona Senator John McCain's press release from late yesterday flaming President Barack Obama for the campaign's video featuring former President Bill Clinton praising Obama's decision to authorize the Seal mission that killed Osama bin Laden, and which questions whether Mitt Romney would have made the same decision.  McCain declared "shame on Barack Obama" and the video as the "height of hypocrisy."

First, here is the online campaign video:

Second, here is McCain's press release, interestingly through the Republican National Committee. (McCain almost always speaks out through his own channels, on his own terms.)

"Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad. This is the same President who once criticized Hillary Clinton for invoking bin Laden 'to score political points.'
"This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't 'spike the ball' after the touchdown. And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected.
"No one disputes that the President deserves credit for ordering the raid, but to politicize it in this way is the height of hypocrisy.
"The Obama campaign asks whether Mitt Romney would have made that decision. Of course they want to focus on this one tactical decision because the other decisions this President has made have harmed our national security.
"He turned his back on the people of Iran when they rose up to end their tyrannical, terrorist-supporting, Holocaust-denying government, giving them no assistance as they were crushed in the streets.
"He has repeatedly thrown our ally Israel under the bus and jeopardized our shared security interests.
"He tried to bring Khaled Sheikh Muhammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and other Al-Qaeda terrorists into the middle of New York City to stand trial in a civilian court.
"He disregarded the advice of his military commanders and pulled all of our troops out of Iraq, and Al-Qaeda is making a comeback there as a result.
"He disregarded the advice of his military commanders again by telling our enemies that we are leaving Afghanistan and then putting our mission and our troops at risk by short-changing our commanders on the ground.
"He watches passively while the Assad regime in Syria, Iran's closest ally, kills thousands of its own people in an unfair fight, and his response to this mass atrocity is to create an 'Atrocities Prevention Board.'
"With a record like that on national security, it is no wonder why President Obama is shamelessly turning the one decision he got right into a pathetic political act of self-congratulation."

Third, here is a strikingly similar criticism of McCain/RNC's use of 9/11 - complete with "shame on you's" - from Keith Olbermann's 2008 MSNBC program:

Finally, here is a link to a post Arizona's Politics made last year after bin Laden was killed, showing the debate interactions between McCain and Obama in 2008 regarding going after bin Laden in Pakistan.  To summarize, McCain was claiming that Obama was reckless in threatening to invade Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden, and mocking him for those comments.
(Commentary: It is also worth noting that McCain has occasionally been criticized by some opponents for consistently politicizing his former POW status, and for occasional hypocrisy.)


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