Bin Laden Anniversary: Bill Clinton Claims Romney Would Not Have Killed Osama [+Video]

Impact

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Let the games begin!

In an unequivocal indication that the general election has officially begun, a couple of controversial political ads are making the rounds, riling up Republicans and Democrats respectively.

In “One Chance” (above), former President Bill Clinton described the difficult national security decisions that presidents must make while in office, and praised President Obama for taking the “harder and honorable path” of ordering the killing of Osama Bin Laden by the Navy SEALs one year ago. The ad suggests that  Republican nominee Mitt Romney would not have made the same decision, based on Romney's previous statement that “it is not worth moving heaven and earth just to try to catch one person.”

Meanwhile, the Romney camp is pushing back by describing the ad as “sad,” taking “a momentous day for all Americas,” an event which “unified our country,” and using it to “once again divide us.”

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) went further, by releasing a statement blasting Obama for politicizing the death of Bin Laden while trying to gloss over what McCain considers other foreign policy missteps, such as "turning his back on Iranians" during the Green Revolution and repeatedly “throwing Israel under the bus.”

In the meantime, American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s Republican Super PAC, released the ad “Cool,” (below) which mocks President Obama’s likeability. The ad juxtaposes images of the president’s rendition of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and his recent “slow-jamming of the news" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon  with alarming statistics for millennials, such as the fact that 1 in 2 new college grads are unemployed or underemployed, and 85% of them move back with their parents.

The ad tries to tie Mitt Romney’s recent statement that Obaba is failing college grads to a 2008 narrative drafted by John McCain and the Republicans that compared Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The ad makes clear that the Romney campaign will try to paint Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world,” while at the same time questioning whether he is the right person to lead the country.

Share your opinion: Which of these campaign ads is more effective? Will President Obama be able to use the Obama killing to his advantage in the general election? Will Romney's attempt to depict Obama as a "celebrity but not a president" actually work? If not, what would be more effective?