Romney is Right

 

Mitt Romney has attacked Barack Obama for the statements his administration has released after the attack on the US embassy in Cairo.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday issued a paper statement sharply critical of President Barack Obama over his handling of violence in the Middle East earlier in the day.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” Romney said in the statement. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Naturally, Obama’s defenders in the Democratic Party and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) have attacked Romney for playing politics, etc. They have suggested that this was a major mistake on Romney’s part. I don’t agree. The statement by the embassy and Obama’s first response were disgraceful. I read a column by Gail Collins, titled Mitt’s Major Meltdown. I think it is Obama’s middle eastern policies that are suffering from a major meltdown but here are some excerpts.

Mitt Romney broke our deal.

Perhaps he didn’t know he’d made it, although, really, I thought it was pretty clear.

He could do anything he wanted during this campaign as long as he sent out signals that once he got in the White House he was not likely to be truly crazy.

We, in return, were going to be able to continue with our normal sleeping patterns through the fall.

Here is the Republican candidate for president of the United States on Wednesday, explaining why he broke into a moment of rising international tension and denounced the White House as “disgraceful” for a mild statement made by the American Embassy in Cairo about the importance of respecting other people’s religions:

“They clearly — they clearly sent mixed messages to the world. And — and the statement came from the administration — and the embassy is the administration — the statement that came from the administration was a — was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a — a — a severe miscalculation.”

Feel free to reread this when you’re staring at the ceiling at 4 a.m.

This all began on Sept. 11. There were protests in the Middle East, at least some of them involving an anti-Islamic movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” which depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a cowardly, drunken torturer of children and old women. I did not see any puppies being dismembered, but then I only watched the 14-minute trailer.

A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile told The Wall Street Journal that he made it in California with $5 million from more than 100 donors. However, nothing Bacile said about himself seemed to hold up in the light of day. And if he did raise $5 million, those donors need to hire a lawyer. The trailer looks as though it was made by a 13-year-old boy with access to a large supply of fake beards.

The film popped up on YouTube dubbed in Arabic, stirring outrage. In response, the American Embassy in Cairo said it deplored “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

Does that seem all that bad to you, people? It was definitely a film whose only point was to offend people of the Islamic faith. I would also call whoever made it not well-guided.

Yes, it does seem bad to me. The statement was essentially shifting the blame for the violence in Egypt and later Libya from the mob that was perpetrating it to the film that allegedly incited the mob. The idea seems to be that no one anywhere may do or say anything that any Moslem might possibly find offensive or that Moslem will react with a murderous rage that the person who offended him will be responsible. That can’t work, unless the whole world is willing to live under Sharia law.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest if someone wants to make a film that portrays the false prophet Mohammed in a bad light. They have every right in the world to do so. If someone is offended by this, too bad. That doesn’t give them the right to murder and riot.

The only proper statement from an American president would be a unequivocal denunciation of the rioters and a clear statement that we will not censor ourselves or abridge our God-given liberty to appease a group of savages halfway around the world. Giving in to these barbarians, even a little, is not only despicable and cowardly but also unwise.  If you give into a bully once, he will expect you to do so again and again and will keep on getting worse. It is long past time we began to stand up against these bullies in the Moslem world.

Related articles

• AP ‘Facts Checks’ Romney With Zero Facts (sweetness-light.com)
• Op-Ed Columnist: Mitt’s Major Meltdown (nytimes.com)