Obama mocks Romney for putting dog on his car roof

President Barack Obama for the first time on Tuesday personally took a jab at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for strapping his dog to the roof of his car.

At a campaign event in Oskaloosa, Iowa, the president pointed out that Romney had invested in several companies that were called "pioneers of outsourcing."

"I want somebody who's fighting for insourcing," Obama said, noting that his opponent wanted to end the tax credits for domestic wind energy.

"A few months ago, Gov. Romney even explained his energy policy this way -- I'm quoting here -- 'You can't drive a car with a windmill on it.' That's what he said about wind power," Obama continued.

"I don't know if he's actually tried that," the president laughed. "I know that he's had other things on his car."

According to a 2007 Boston Globe profile of the former Massachusetts governor, Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, yelled, “Gross!” as he noticed a brown liquid flowing down the back window from the Irish Setter Seamus, who had been riding on the roof of the family’s station wagon for hours during a family trip in 1983.

“As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station,” the Globe noted. “There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.”

During an interview with an interview with ABC News in April, Ann Romney explained her husband's actions.

“The dog loved it,” she said. “Once, he — we traveled all the time and he — he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs.”

“But — he would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for two weeks, so.”

Conservatives have tried to counter criticism of Romney over the Seamus incident by digging up a quote from the 1995 book “Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” where the president recalls being fed dog meat and other local foods while living in Indonesia as a young boy in the late '60s and early '70s.

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Aug. 13, 2012.

Photo: Flickr/The White House