TODAY IN IOKIYAR

The right is flipping out because Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, just said this about the activities of extremist groups in the Middle East:

... we can't kill our way out of this mess.

We're -- we're going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the -- the world of Islam and -- and other parts of the world reject this radical violent extremism....

Oh, wait, sorry. It wasn't Marie Harf who said that. It was Mitt Romney, in his third presidential debate with President Obama. You remember Mitt Romney -- the guy the right-wingers decided was a prophet who got everything right in 2012, particularly on foreign policy?

Marie Harf, by contrast, said this about ISIS, setting off a right-wing freakout:

We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs...

Oh, but "we cannot win this war by killing them" is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from "we can't kill our way out of this mess"! Right? And saying that we need "to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups" is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from saying that we should "put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the -- the world of Islam and -- and other parts of the world reject this radical violent extremism"! Isn't it? Of course it is!

Why? Because ... um ... hold on a second, it'll come to me....

This has been today's installment of It's OK If You're a Republican.

UPDATE: Just realized that I wasn't the first to notice this.