Romney Embarrasses Himself by Attacking Obama

The President harbors sympathy for terrorists and proves he’s no leader. Mitt Romney hopes to score points with such fierce attacks on the President, but the political novice has little regard for the facts. Maligning Obama reminds many conservatives of Sarah Palin.

At Republican headquarters in Boston, there was general agreement that this was an opportune time to take a stance. Mitt Romney was trailing President Obama in all the polls in the matter of foreign policy competence. That, plus Romney had been taking flak from his own party for neglecting to acknowledge the U.S. military members serving in Afghanistan.

As pictures of the violent protests at American institutions in Benghazi and Cairo flickered across the television screens, Republicans decided on a belligerent reaction, in contrast to the Obama administration’s response. The Romney camp issued a statement at 10:09 p.m. on Sept. 11, saying, “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.” The response was based on a statement released by the U.S. embassy in Cairo distancing the U.S. from the anti-Islamic film that touched off the Egyptian protests.

When the Romney team explained 15 minutes later that their statement was effective immediately and the temporary ban on commentary out of respect for the victims of the 9/11 attacks had been lifted, it was clear in political Washington that the Republicans had found the issue on which they would base their foreign policy position. In what for them was uncharted and touchy territory, they decided on the tried and true conservative belief that Obama did too much apologizing, thus weakening the United States.

“Tasteless Political Attacks”

It took only 24 hours to confirm that Romney neither distinguished himself nor radiated competence. On Fox News, the influential Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said, “I don’t feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors, say in the past few hours, perhaps since last night.” Under cover of anonymity, Republican strategists told Buzzfeed they were appalled by what they termed “unpresidential behavior” on Romney’s part, calling it a disaster. George W. Bush’s former political advisor Matthew Dowd complained, “It almost feels like Sarah Palin is his foreign policy adviser.”

In view of the deaths of four U.S. diplomats and State Department employees, Romney discredited himself with what the Washington Post called a tasteless political attack. Romney’s party colleague Peter King, the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, stated for the record that he would have waited 12 to 24 hours and then released a more comprehensive statement.

It’s clear that Romney ignored a basic ground rule of diplomacy on the morning of Sept. 12: He went public before having all the facts. By the time the morning television programs were airing, there was no more doubt: The statement out of Cairo that Romney had so harshly criticized had not received Washington’s blessing and, in fact, had been issued hours before the first demonstrations had even taken place.

A Rhetorically Meager Presentation

That makes Romney’s campaign speech in Jacksonville, Florida all the more amazing. Instead of correcting his earlier statement for the sake of national unity and mourning, especially since this was the first U.S. ambassador to lose his life in the line of duty since 1988, Romney nonetheless chose to use the primitive “embassy = government = Obama” connection to attack the Democrats.

He again gave the impression that he understood the situation as the protesters were still attacking the compound. And he then came up with the new explanation, that “apologizing for American values is never the right course.” Romney made that statement in a nine-minute appearance totally bereft of any rhetorical value whatsoever. In it, he also neglected to specify what he would have done differently had he been president.

It was not surprising that Romney refused to back down from that stance despite the unambiguous statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “We condemn in the strongest terms, this senseless acts of violence,” as well as by the President himself, “We will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.” That statement was widely perceived to be a prediction that unmanned drones would be in action over Libya as soon as possible, seeking out those responsible for the attacks.

Fred Kaplan of the online magazine Slate said Romney could have reacted masterfully and in a politically smarter fashion had he telephoned Obama to offer his assistance in this particularly difficult time for America. The two could have held a joint press conference showing that minor political skirmishes would be set aside whenever American lives were endangered. All this could have been done by Romney, “which would have made him look noble and might have made Obama look like the petty one if he’d waved away these offers.”

The death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens along with his three colleagues has become an important story on evening cable television shows, but the debate about its impact on the national elections will go on even longer. While Ezra Klein describes Romney’s reaction as an act of desperation on liberal MSNBC — likening him to a losing poker player who keeps doubling down in the hope of recouping his losses — even Bill O’Reilly, figurehead of the conservative Fox News Channel, has to admit that Romney’s preliminary statement from Boston wasn’t actually accurate.

Senator John McCain, one of the nation’s most experienced Republican foreign policy experts avoided concurring with Romney’s assessment on CNN, concentrating instead on the theme of Obama’s lack of leadership was threatening U.S. security, as many other conservatives have said. But Romney, whose foreign policy convictions are as vague as his economic plans just eight weeks prior to the election, gets nothing but praise from former opponents Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – not to mention Sarah Palin. She posted on her Facebook page, “It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists.”

And how does Barack Obama, vilified as a weakling and permanent apologizer, react? He’s deploying two warships to the Libyan coast. The two destroyers, as well as 50 U.S. Marines, are being sent as a “preventive measure,” according to an anonymous government official. The Pentagon had already previously announced that the Army was sending an anti-terrorist unit to Libya.

In a CBS interview broadcast in full on Sunday, Obama came off as a serious statesman, lecturing the neophyte Romney and saying that Romney had yet to learn to get his facts straight before opening his mouth in public. He accused Romney of shooting before he bothered to aim.

However, the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa also pose risks for the President. Should it come to light over the next few days that al-Qaeda sympathizers were actually responsible for the deaths of the four Americans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, that will call into question the effectiveness of the CIA and other applicable government agencies. One thing is certain: The last of the three debates between Romney and Obama scheduled for October 22 will be on foreign policy. That promises to be exciting.