Santorum: Obama 'doesn't deserve credit' for getting bin Laden

GOP hopeful Rick Santorum says that a lot of people deserve credit for the death of Osama bin Laden -- but President Barack Obama isn't one of them.

In recent weeks, Santorum had called Obama's foreign policy "pathetic" and accused the president of doing "nothing but appease the Iranians."

"Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al Qaeda leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement," the president said at a press conference last week.

CNN host John King gave Santorum a chance to respond in an interview Tuesday.

"That's a pathetic answer, in my opinion," the Republican presidential candidate replied. "Osama bin Laden was a continuation of President Bush's policy. It had nothing to do with a contingency or a problem that came up on his watch. He simply followed through, which we have been trying to do for 10 years."

"[The president] deserves no credit for that?" King asked.

"No, the people who deserve credit for that were the military whose mission it was to find them," Santorum insisted. "And the president doesn't deserve credit for doing -- he didn't make a decision, if you will, as to go after bin Laden. That decision had been made 10 years ago."

After being pressed by King again, Santorum did give Obama some credit for authorizing the military to go into Pakistan and raid the terrorist leader's compound.

In a May interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, Santorum declared that "9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he’s walking around taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden."

"He didn't get Osama bin Laden!" he exclaimed.

Watch this video from CNN's John King USA, broadcast Dec. 13, 2011.

(H/T: Think Progress)