Republicans cheer Tahmooressi's release, question Obama's role

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

Republicans on Saturday welcomed the news of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi being released from a Mexico prison and the efforts by GOP congressmen to help broker a deal but questioned whether the Obama administration did enough.

 

“President Obama still isn’t using all of the tools and levers that we have as the world’s lone super power, whether it is as simple as getting Sgt. Tahmooressi released from custody to defending our interests or protecting our allies in the Middle East,” Arkansas GOP Rep. Tom Cotton told Fox News.

 

Cotton, who is now running for Senate, wrote Obama asking him to intervene.

 

A Mexican judge on Friday ordered Tahmooressi’s immediate release, after he spent seven months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns.

 

The judge said Tahmooressi should be freed because of his mental state. But he did not make a determination on the illegal-arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

 

California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told The Washington Times that Obama was “AWOL” throughout the process.

 

Rohrabacher said he, fellow California GOP Rep. Ed Royce, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Arizona GOP Matt Salmon fought for Tahmooressi’s release after President Obama did not.

 

“The president, who is also the commander in chief, didn’t do his job,” Rohrabacher told the newspaper. “There is a lack of concern for this man, for this American hero who served our country. As commander in chief he showed a total disdain and non-interest in an American hero who served us in Afghanistan and a total disregard for the fact that he was suffering.”

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Willful disregard?