PEUBLO, Co. — Mitt Romney took President Barack Obama to task for referring to recent crises in the Middle East as "bumps in the road."
Opening a plane-side rally here, Romney called Obama's comments to 60 Minutes, "surprising."
"He said the developments in the Middle East are bumps in the road," Romney recounted, drawing laughs from the audience. "That was my reaction."
"Bumps in the road?" Romney continued. "We had an ambassador assassinated, we had a Muslim brotherhood member elected to the presidency of Egypt, 20,000 people have been killed in Syria. We have tumult in Pakistan, and of course Iran is that much closer to having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. These are not bumps in the road, these are human lives."
Romney added that, unlike Obama, he would provide leadership to "shape the future of this part of the world."
"This is time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East, not just be merciful or be at mercy of the events of the middle east," he said. "I will get America on track to have the kind of leadership we need so we can shape the future of this part of the world and keep America strong."
Romney drove the same message to ABC, CBS, and NBC in hastily-arranged interviews Monday morning before he took off from Denver. A Romney aide told BuzzFeed that the attack fit into their broader narrative of Obama as "out of his depth as president."