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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign was forced to quickly issue a clarification on Tuesday after their candidate admitted that President Barack Obama had not raised taxes during his first four years in office.

"I admit this, he has one thing he did not do in his first four years — he’s said he’s going to do in the next four years, which is to raise taxes," Romney told a crowd in Ohio as a visibly uncomfortable vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan looked on.

"Paul Ryan looked like someone just punched him in the stomach," PolitcusUSA's Jason Easley noted. "The really priceless moment is happening behind Romney, as Paul Ryan realizes what Romney said, and tries his very best to maintain his smile. Ryan’s face transformed into a pained expression, as Romney accidentally let loose with a bit of truth."

Within hours of the campaign event, Romney's team was walking back the former governor's statement.

"President Obama has raised taxes on millions of middle-class Americans during his first term in office," spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said in a statement to ABC News. "Governor Romney was clearly communicating about an additional tax increase President Obama is proposing on American small businesses that will jeopardize over 700,000 jobs. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will stop the President’s tax increases, create 12 million new jobs, and turn our economy around."

Earlier this year, a Washington Post fact check awarded the Romney campaign "Two Pinocchios" for claiming that the president "has already raised taxes on millions of Americans."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Looks like Mitt Romney might want to get himself a better Communications Director than Gail Gitcho. From this Thursday night's Anderson Cooper 360: Anderson Cooper Explains Non-Partisan Congressional Budget Office To Top Romney Adviser:

Romney Communications Director Gail Gitcho says the “CBO” report from the Obama administration claimed that the stimulus would keep unemployment below eight percent. The CBO doesn't work for Obama, as Cooper notes, and it never wrote that. The eight percent figure comes from a projection authored by Obama aides before he even took office.

These surrogates get used to getting a lot of fact-free, unchallenged air time way too often. It was nice to see one of them challenged when trying to tell a few whoppers as Gitcho was here. We've already discussed the fact that the Romney campaign just can't quit lying. Here's Steve Benen's latest compilation from this week: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXII.

Full transcript via CNN:

COOPER: So, Gail, the big focus today was jobs. Something Governor Romney had to say about public sector jobs got a lot of attention a few days ago. I just want to remind our viewers what he had to say back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Didn't he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Now, you know, the Obama campaign has hit those comments hard, saying he wants to fire firemen, police and teachers. Then earlier this week Governor Romney pushed back with these comments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: Of course, teachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level. And also by states. The federal government doesn't pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen. So, obviously, that's completely absurd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: But the federal government, though, does provide billions of dollars every year in essential funding for schools and first responders and a big percentage of that aid goes to pay for personnel. Like more than $14 billion I think under Title 1 this year. Billions more programs for improving special education and a lot of that is hiring special education teachers, community policing support. So without that federal aid, many of those positions would disappear.

Would Governor Romney want to cut those federal programs?

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Nina Easton, Ms. Fortune Magazine spokesperson on ClusterFox who I'm quite sure has never had to worry about where her next meal is coming from warned all of us about the dangers of extending unemployment benefits for all of those lucky son of a guns who are living high off the hog from their unemployment benefits. In the world of the Nina Easton's out there, we shouldn't be extending those benefits because those lazy good for nothing workers are just happy to keep collecting their government check rather than, you know, trying to find a job that actually might pay a living wage.

I find it hard to imagine that workers out there who have a chance at making a decent living in another city aren't already moving and that anyone who had a job offer for a wage comparable to what they were making hasn't already moved rather than Easton's scenario of them sitting on their unemployment benefits before doing so. Her ridiculous analogy might be true if there were a lot of jobs to be found out there.

Easton just proves herself to be another heartless Republican that would rather call unemployed Americans lazy and willing to live off of the government rather than to admit that the GOP policies of outsourcing and the refusal of Republicans along with some ConservaDems to properly stimulate the economy have left them unemployed where they're needing the help in the first place.

Easton apparently knew her comments might generate some hate mail and tried to temper that with saying she understood unemployment benefits are "not cushy". Yeah, that makes you accusing people of sitting on their asses with this horrid job market all better Nina. I don't think so. If you get some hate mail for your comments, it's deserved. Most people in this country don't have the benefit of drawing your type of wingnut welfare where standing up for the poor downtrodden rich pays so well.

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A cell phone video has surfaced showing a US border patrol officer shooting a Mexican boy in Ciudad Juarez. Fourteen-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca was on the Mexican side of the border when he was shot and killed.

The video, obtained by CNN, captures several people running below a railroad bridge that connects the U.S. to Mexico. An officer can be seen getting off his bicycle and moving towards the figures. One person is apprehended by the officer on the Mexican side of the border.

Soon after, the officer is seen pointing his gun at a suspect who is standing on the Mexican side of the border. At least two gunshots can be heard on the tape. A third gunshot is heard moments later.

"They're throwing rocks," can be heard in Spanish, according to CNN. "They hit him... they hit him," the witness says.

CNN noted that FBI spokesperson special agent Andrea Simmons' account differed from the video.

The video contradicts Simmons' account who said: "This agent, who had the second subject detained on the ground, gave verbal commands to the remaining subjects to stop and retreat. However, the subjects surrounded the agent and continued to throw rocks at him. The agent then fired his service weapon several times, striking one subject who later died."

The tape does not appear to show the suspects throwing rocks.

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Mr. Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran who never found a war he didn't like John McCain thinks we should not be talking about a timeline to withdraw from Afghanistan. McCain also apparently thinks that the eight years we've already spent in Afghanistan hasn't been long enough to "break the enemy's will" so we can "win". I would like for Sen. McCain to explain how anyone "wins" an occupation. Of course that would require him admitting that's what we're doing there, which is never going to happen.

DAVID GREGORY: We're back with Senator John McCain. Welcome back to the program. A lot to discuss here. A lot to react to. Let's get to your big issue this week. The issue of withdrawal. You heard Secretary Gates say here today, "July 2011 is a date certain for the beginning of the withdrawal." Do you have a problem with that?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Yes. But let me also say-- David, I support the President's decision. I think it's the right decision. I think that it can lead to success. It's a tough decision on his part to send young Americans into harm's way. As Secretary Gates said, casualties will go up, tragically. But I think he made the right decision. And I think that-- he is-- the reality is, he's not only-- a tough decision to send young Americans into harm's way. But is-- significant elements of his own party are-- are opposed.

So, I strongly support the decision. The problem with the date certain now is that not only there's a problem with that itself, but there's-- a significant contribution between what Secretaries Gates and Clinton were saying and what the President--

DAVID GREGORY: Contradiction. Contradiction.

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Contradiction.

DAVID GREGORY: Yeah.

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