President Barack Obama and Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan both weighed in against the replacement referee debacle that had the Green Bay Packers from Ryan's home swing state of Wisconsin lose on the last play of the game in a Monday Night Football thriller in Seattle.
"Terrible," Obama told the press pool at the White House about the game. "I've been saying for months, we've gotta get our refs back."
Obama also tweeted about the refs, and he called for the regular refs to be brought back during an interview with the Des Moines Register.
"We need to go ahead and get this resolved, and I think that is a bipartisan position," Obama told the swing-state newspaper in a telephone interview.
Obama didn't blame the replacements.
"The fact is this is a fast, tough game to control. And it doesn't make sense to me for a league that's been so successful not to want to put their very best out there," he said.
At a speech in Ohio, Ryan repeatedly ripped the officials, at one point joking that they must work in the White House's budget office, and he said that it's time to get the real refs back on the field.
Ryan also worked it into his stump speech, saying that he and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney are laying out real solutions to the nation's growing entitlement spending crunch.
"Unlike the Seattle Seahawks last night, we want to deserve this victory," he said.
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
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