Romney knew about Mali, why didn’t you?
Remember when Mitt Romney said we should pay attention to Mali in the debates?
With the Arab Spring, came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, and opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life, and in economic life in the Middle East. But instead, we've seen in nation after nation, a number of disturbing events. Of course we see in Syria, 30,000 civilians having been killed by the military there. We see in -- in Libya, an attack apparently by, I think we know now, by terrorists of some kind against -- against our people there, four people dead.
Our hearts and -- and minds go out to them. Mali has been taken over, the northern part of Mali by al-Qaeda type individuals. We have in -- in Egypt, a Muslim Brotherhood president. And so what we're seeing is a pretty dramatic reversal in the kind of hopes we had for that region. ...
But we can't kill our way out of this mess. We're going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the -- the world of Islam and other parts of the world, reject this radical violent extremism, which is -- it's certainly not on the run.
- Mitt Romney, OCTOBER 22, 2012
Twitter was on fire... much of it mockery and some saying he has no grasp of geography:
Mitt, you do know that most of America thinks Mali is one of Obama's daughters, right?
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) October 23, 2012
Mitt Romney thinks that Mali is in the Middle East. No grasp of geography. Check. #debates
— Aaron Huslage (@huslage) October 23, 2012
Romney puts Mali in the Middle East #CNNdebate
— Security Clearance (@natlsecuritycnn) October 23, 2012
Romney seems to think Mali is in the Middle East #debate
— Hind Makki (@HindMakki) October 23, 2012
Mitt Romney keeps saying Mali like Americans know that is a country... #debate #BocaDebate
— GOP Devolving (@GOPDevolving) October 23, 2012
Romney mentions Mali when talking about the Middle East conflicts. Also: not in the Middle East. #debate
— Andrew Katz (@katz) October 23, 2012
Um, Mali - why does Romney care about Mali?
— Elmira Bayrasli (@endeavoringE) October 23, 2012
So saying Libya and Egypt are part of the Middle East when they're both in Africa is okay, but talking about Mali when you're talking about the Arab Spring in the Middle East region makes you geographically challenged?
FLASHBACK: Obama claims he has traveled to 57 states:
Maybe we should have listened?
Image: Bloomberg