Diplomacy D-Day: What Would Willard Do?
Mitt Romney defends his criticism of President Obama, after four diplomats were killed during protests in Benghazi, Libya. Photo by Charles Dharapak/AP.
By Emily Theroux
With only eight weeks to go before the 2012 election, tensions are ramping up in Rightwingistan. Mitt Romney, sadly, got no bounce from his disastrous convention, while President Obama soared with a 12-point spike in the polls among independents. And even more humiliating for Mitt, Fox News released the poll results.
By September 11th, conservatives were wringing their hands. Nothing they could think of seemed to be selling this bill of goods to any undecided working-class voters who weren’t dyed-in-the-wool racists. (One white Virginian, who voted for Bush twice and firmly believes Obama is a Muslim, told a reporter that she wouldn’t vote for Romney because he didn’t know “everyday people” like her and would only help the wealthy. Surprisingly, Obama will get her vote. “At least he wasn’t brought up filthy rich,” she observed.)
Pastor Terry Jones
Rush Limbaugh was desperately goading Mitt to “get tough” with Obama, and Mitt’s pal Bibi Netanyahu was saber-rattling about Iran, suspiciously close to the November election. A show of “force” was needed on the world stage to bring independent stragglers into the GOP fold. When Florida’s infamous, Koran-burning pastor, Terry Jones, proclaimed this year’s September 11 anniversary “International Judge Muhammad Day,” and talked up the YouTube debut of a crude, anti-Muslim video, Romney saw his chance.
When the video appeared in an Arabic translation, outraged Muslims tuned in to horrifying, “cartoonish” depictions of their beloved Prophet Muhammad as “a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester, and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug,” wrote David D. Kirkpatrick in The New York Times.
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens
News of the blasphemy spread quickly online. Furious protestors ran riot in Libya, attacking the American consulate and killing four American diplomats, including the widely respected U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens. It was the first time since 1979 that such a high-ranking diplomat had been murdered in the line of duty. In Egypt, protestors scaled the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and burned the American flag.
Mighty Mitt, hearing that a statement condemning “religious incitement” had been issued by the embassy in Cairo, rushed in to seize the day. Before Stevens’ body had even been identified or his family notified, Mitt issued an ill-advised proclamation of his own (despite the fact that he had vowed to refrain from politicking on the September 11 anniversary):
“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. 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.”
Never mind that the embassy’s statement was issued six hours before the protests began. Obama apologized for America again! was Mitt’s take on it, and he was sticking to it. Obama loves Muslims. (Good line; reinforces the canard that Obama is a Muslim.) How dare “the Obama regime” target the “good-guy” American filmmakers instead of the evil Muslim protestors?
Then Mitt just sat back and waited for the fireworks to explode.
Faced with mounting criticism, Romney dug in
This morning, after the negative reviews of his rash reaction started flooding in, Mitt stepped to the microphone again and, instead of making amends, shocked the political establishment by doubling down:
“When our grounds are being attacked and being breached, the first response should be outrage Apology for America’s values will never be the right course. We express immediately when we feel that the president and his administration have done something which is inconsistent with the principles of America.”
“A terrible course for America is to stand in apology for American values,” Mitt later told a reporter. (What does that even mean? Whose values – his? The entire substance of his attack on Obama was based on a deliberate, compound falsehood. The embassy didn’t issue an apology; their statement was an attempt to stave off the violence they saw coming well before the attacks; and Obama had no direct involvement in what they said.)
Did Mitt Romney jump the gun in issuing statements “that were laced with politics,” asked NBC’s Peter Alexander?
“I don’t think we ever hesitate when we see something which is a violation of our principles,” replied a testy but self-righteous Mitt.
Romney clearly deplores “bad form” more than he appreciates good substance.
Mitt’s foreign-policy moves ‘craven,’ amateurish
The far right performed as expected. The following snarky Fox tweet was par for the course:
Somebody get some bandages and salve for Obama’s press corps — Romney just delivered a thumping.
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) September 12, 2012
Michelle Malkin, Breitbart.com’s John Nolte, and Dan Calabrese, writing for CainTV, piled on.
But moderate and even conservative members of the mainstream press — and members of the GOP establishment — took a much dimmer view of the way the candidate handled this contretemps.
- “They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up,’ said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an ‘utter disaster’ and a ‘Lehman moment’ — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.” — Ben Smith, BuzzFeed Politics
- “Likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign” — Mark Halperin, Time magazine
- Romney hasn’t been “doing himself any favors. Sometimes, when really bad things happen, hot things happen — cool words, or no words is the way to go” — Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter
- “Irresponsible”; “a bad mistake” — Chuck Todd, MSNBC
- Romney’s attack “does not stand up to simple chronology” — Jake Tapper, ABC
- Romney’s actions “ham-handed” and “inaccurate” — Ron Fournier, National Journal
- “The Romney campaign’s politicization of the embassy attacks is even worse than I expected” — Blake Hounshell, Foreign Policy
- “Who told Mr. Romney to issue a political broadside against the commander-in-chief the day after a U.S. ambassador was murdered?” — Joe Scarborough, MSNBC
- “Tolerance of a religion that represents 1/7th of the world’s population is a very wise policy” — former ambassador to NATO R. Nicholas Burns
“I can’t remember in foreign policy, anything like this,” said Democratic strategist Bob Schrum, who served as a consultant to numerous Democratic campaigns. “This guy seems to have an instinct for saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in politics. He came across as craven and incompetent on national security. This is a disaster; this guy’s just not ready for prime time.”
As progressive radio host Joe Madison said, “This man is stuck on stupid.”
Is Mitt Romney even qualified to be Commander-in-Chief?
My question: Should someone with Romney’s personality flaws even be under consideration for the sensitive job of leading the most challenging foreign policy operation in the world? He lacks both experience and any respectable source of advice. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t even have what my father, a Dallas native, used to call “kitty brains” — in this case, the instincts to choose a running mate who knows his way around the world. Romney has no habit of critical thinking, no facility for introspection, and no empathy for other people — and there’s not a diplomatic bone in his body. To my mind, he’s not at all “presidential.” All he’s got going for him is a boatload of money — and good hair.
Foreign policy involves a great deal more than braying chauvinistically about “American values,” shooting big guns, and deciding where and when to “put boots on the ground,” as the Bush/Cheney debacle should have taught the people who don’t understand how critical it is that they not vote for a redo of eight years of sheer folly.
Someone said today that this was Mitt Romney’s three A.M. phone call. Thank God he didn’t have his finger on the nuclear trigger, or Benghazi might have been reduced to radioactive rubble last night.
Tags: American Embassy, Barack Obama, Cairo, diplomacy, Egypt, Emily Theroux, foreign policy, J. Christopher Stevens, Mitt Romney
September 12th, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Good points all. I couldn’t agree more, but, who besides me and a few other “intelligent” folk will understand it. Please tone down the language; just say it, for god’s sake. Get rid of the ego. You are capable of being a great writer. Think Hemingway. Please, We need to understand what you have to say but I can ‘t send this to the people who really need to read and understand what you are saying; it is too pedantic.
September 13th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Thank you, Randy, for taking the time to critique my writing. It is never easy to read negative reviews, but if I put it out there, you have the right to evaluate it, and I really can use the feedback. What I’ve been writing is some kind of hybrid of news report and column. It’s probably too long and too wordy — and yes, I’m taking the issue of what you call my “pedantic” language under advisement, although you’re the first person to mention anyone having difficulty understanding it.
The column format doesn’t come naturally to me. I wrote feature stories and longer personal essays when I worked for newspapers. I’m not like Bob and Jeff, who have written columns or editorials for years and probably have a more encyclopedic knowledge about the issues than I do – and likely don’t feel compelled to do as much research. I’m not sure how well my format works. I have gotten very positive feedback about my tone, style, and language from other readers.
Writing commentary about a breaking news story is something I find particularly challenging, because the facts keep being updated and the deadline is tighter than I’d like. I’m sure that was reflected in last night’s column; it needed more editing and there just wasn’t time.
I already had a column close to completion on Tuesday about recent developments in the presidential race, but a lot of what I had written became obsolete when the embassy story broke. Leading with a photo of Obama on Reddit, or Obama being bear-hugged by a pizza chef, just wouldn’t have worked on the day of a major international incident. So I ended up scrambling on deadline, which makes me so anxious that I want to just jump out the window!
I never like rushing something into “print” that I haven’t had several hours to sit back and contemplate, to make sure it includes the most vital information, reads smoothly, makes sense to readers, and does what Zest is supposed to do: “be here waiting for you with something new each week that we hope will make you laugh, cry, shout out ‘Right on!’ or get hopping mad.”
I worked on editing my column further this morning, so please look it over if you get a chance, and let me know what you think.
September 13th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Great piece Emily! As far as Randy is concerned, I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Rather than the criticism being constructive and enlightening it appears to me to be a projection of his own apparent sense of inadequacy. In including himself as part of the “few other ‘intelligent’ folk” he demonstrates a level of maturity and grandiosity that is usually associated with children at an early stage of development. At the same time he tells you to get rid of the ego and that your column was too pedantic (!) with criticism based on pedantic non-specific finger pointing. In response to his condescending remark – “You are capable of being a great writer”, you are a great writer Emily. Your columns incorporate well documented, well researched material that is interwoven with delightful and humorous metaphor.
Jim Gilbert
September 14th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Thank you so much, Jim! I was really beginning to doubt myself until I read your very encouraging comment this morning. It’s hard to gauge how your work is being received when you’re sitting alone in a corner of your kitchen, staring at a computer screen, instead of being cocooned within the bustle of a newsroom, surrounded by other writers and editors. When I asked my husband, who has worked for newspapers for 40 years, what he thought about this, he said, “Don’t you ever ‘dumb yourself down’ for the Internet!”
This is the way I’ve written my entire adult life, and I really don’t know any other way of approaching it. When I worked for newspapers, my work won awards and readers sent me positive feedback (in the form of hand-written letters, not emails or hastily posted online comments). No one ever complained about my writing. I realize that writing a political column is a much riskier proposition than writing feature stories and personal essays. The Internet can often be an intolerant, combative place, because it’s far easier to lash out at people you don’t have to face, and that “send” button is deceptively simple to click. I expect people to challenge my opinions, but it didn’t occur to me that the way I expressed them would become an issue.
P.S. To Jeff and Bob: What I said in my last comment didn’t really communicate what I was trying to say about your excellent columns, which never fail to inspire me. Mine need more research than yours do because both of you are pros at both analyzing politics and writing about it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute my views to Zest.