Romney: 'Even Jimmy Carter' would have killed bin Laden

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is trying to neutralize President Barack Obama's achievement of killing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden by insisting that it's something that even liberal Democratic President Jimmy Carter would have done.

A recent web advertisement from the Obama campaign and a speech by Vice President Joe Biden have both called into question whether Romney would have given the order to take out the 9/11 architect.

“This guy has a got a backbone like a ramrod,” the vice president said of Obama. “For real. For real. On this gut issue, we know what President Obama did. We can’t say for certain what Governor Romney would have done.”

“Thanks to President Obama, bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,” Biden continued. “You have to ask yourself had Governor Romney been president, could he have used the same slogan in reverse?”

A reporter in New Hampshire on Monday asked Romney if he would have given the same order to attack bin Laden's compound.

"Of course, of course," the former Massachusetts governor replied, according to The New York Times. “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”

The Associated Press quoted Romney in 2007 as saying that there would be only “a very insignificant increase in safety” if bin Laden were killed.

“It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney reportedly said.

Photo: Flickr/davelawrence8