Mitt Romney today suggested President Obama will remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency, a direct nod to the Tea Party and to anti-Islam extremists — who for years have been circulating the false claim that the Left is trying to take God off American coinage — and an attempt to capitalize on the Democrats’ unfortunate battle during their convention this past week when President Obama requested they replace “God” back into the Democratic platform.
“That pledge says ‘under God’ and I will not take God out of our platform,â€Â Romney said, after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. “I will not take God off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart,” Talking Points Memo reported:
In response, Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith called the insinsuation false and an act of desperation.
“It’s disappointing to see Mitt Romney try to throw a Hail Mary by launching extreme and untrue attacks against the President and associating with some of the most strident and divisive voices in the Republican Party, including Rep. Steve King and Pat Robertson,” she said in a statement. “This isn’t a recipe for making America stronger, it’s a recipe for division and taking us backward.”
Buzzfeed‘s McKay Coppins notes that Romney campaigned “alongside televangelist Pat Robertson in front of a loud, flag-waving crowd of about 2,800 here Saturday afternoon, Mitt Romney debuted a revamped stump speech built around the Pledge of Allegiance, patriotism — and God.”
The popular blog Little Green Footballs (LGF) first noted the connection to anti-Islam extremists, pointing Pamela Geller, who founded the blog Atlas Shrugs, and is the head of two anti-Islam certified hate groups, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI).
LGF today noted, “this dumb conspiracy theory has been circulating on the far right for years. Here’s loony Pamela Geller pushing it in 2007, in her inimitably incoherent style: BOYCOTT GODLESS DOLLAR!!!”
Clearly, Romney is either totally ignorant of history, or is comfortable pandering to his party’s far right extremists, throwing them red meat, as he did two weeks ago when he made his birther joke.
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