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Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 07:51:16 PDT 2012


*The New Yorker:*

September 12, 2012
“Libya Surprise” Could Be Death Knell for RomneyCampaign
Posted by John Cassidy<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/john_cassidy/search?contributorName=John%20Cassidy>

Harold Wilson, who was Prime Minister of Britain twice, in the sixties and
seventies, famously said a week is a long time in politics. Sometimes, so
is a day. This time yesterday, the conventional wisdom, faithfully trotted
out<http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/09/obama-math-sets-path-to-victory.html>by
yours truly among many, was that Obama was coasting to victory in a
Presidential sweepstakes that was threatening to peter out in tedium.

So much for that. After last night’s “September surprise,” Obama is still
home free, and Mitt Romney is still trailing. In fact, this might well be
the death knell for his campaign. But what an uproar.

Romney’s attempt to exploit the violent anti-U.S. demonstrations in Egypt
and Libya to portray Obama as soft on America’s enemies backfired almost
immediately, when it became clear the statement from the U.S. Embassy in
Cairo he had cited was issued before the demonstrations began. Overnight,
the tragic news came that Chris Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and
three other U.S. officials were killed while trying to flee the besieged
U.S. consulate in Benghazi. But still the Mittster didn’t quit seeking to
gain political advantage. Speaking in Florida this morning, he repeated the
charge that the Obama Administration was failing to stand up for things
Americans hold dear, such as freedom of speech. The White House was
“standing in apology for our values” and following a “terrible course,”
Romney said.

The reaction to Romney’s desperate gambit has been almost universally
negative. About the only people who are sticking up for
him<http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/demint-backs-romney-on-libya-135321.html>today
are Jim DeMint, the Tea Party senator from South Carolina, and Bill
Kristol, the editor of the *Weekly Standard*. Even Romney’s running mate,
Paul Ryan, failed to
echo<http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/ryan-avoids-obama-criticism-in-response-to-libya-egypt-135314.html>his
line of attack. Speaking in Wisconsin, Ryan described the killings in
Libya as “pretty disturbing,” but he didn’t criticize Obama, and he said it
was “a time for healing.”

There will be plenty of time to discuss the rights and wrongs. But before
getting into all that, I thought it might be worth setting down how the
past twenty-four hours unfolded. With events taking place in three
countries, on two continents, there has been a lot of confusion about who
said what when. Here’s a quick timeline I put together from the Web. As far
as I can see, Romney doesn’t come out of it looking any better. But it does
indicate that his attacks initially caused some concern in the White
House—enough concern for the Administration to try and distance itself from
its loyal servants in Cairo.

Ironically, it all began with a temporary truce between the campaigns to
mark the anniversary of 9/11. But yesterday afternoon, demonstrators
surrounded the U.S. embassies in Cairo and Benghazi to protest an
anti-Islam film, a lengthy
trailer<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmodVun16Q4&feature=youtu.be>for
which can be seen on You Tube, that reportedly depicts the prophet
Mohammad as a womanizer, a child molester, and an imposter. Initially, the
focus was on Egypt. Around noon local time, *before* the protests against
the video began but following threats of violence, the U.S. Embassy in
Cairo posted this statement <http://egypt.usembassy.gov/pr091112.html>
online:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts
by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—as we
condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th
anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United
States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation
as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious
beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the
actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the
religious beliefs of others.

Embassy staffers also issued a number of tweets that made similar points.
Some of these messages were subsequently deleted, but not before a number
of Republicans and conservative journalists here in the United States were
alerted. One of the tweets said, “We firmly reject the actions by those who
abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of
others.” Another said, “Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of
American democracy.” (A
report<http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/09/us-embassy-in-egypt-deletes-tweets-condemning-anti-muslim-film-1.html>from
CBC, the Canadian news organization, reproduces some of the tweets.)

As the day and evening wore on, a couple of thousand demonstrators gathered
outside the Cairo embassy. According to a Reuters report from the
scene<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us-egypt-usa-protest-idUSBRE88A11N20120911>,
most of them were youthful supporters of Islamic groups or “ultras,” the
soccer fans who played a big role in bringing down Hosni Mubarak. Some of
the demonstrators tried to scale the walls of the fortress-liked compound.
Eventually, they succeeded, seizing a U.S. flag and setting it alight
before the television cameras. Reuters reports that there were about twenty
people atop the embassy wall, and they tried to raise their own black flag,
emblazoned with the words: “There is no god but God, and Mohammad is his
messenger.”

In Benghazi, a city in eastern Libya, meanwhile, a similar protest was
taking place, and it, too, was turning violent. Militia men armed with
grenades raided the U.S. consulate and set it on fire. Initially, Libyan
officials said that one embassy worker had been killed. “The other staff
members were evacuated and are safe and sound,” Libya’s deputy interior
minister Wanis al-Sharif told AFP news agency. A news
story<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19562692>from the BBC
posted at about 9
P.M. E.T. said that the identity of the dead U.S. official wasn’t yet
known, but he had reportedly been shot.

In response to the killing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued
a statement
on Tuesday night<http://statedept.tumblr.com/post/31380336590/statement-by-secretary-clinton-on-the-attack-in>that
said,

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi
today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed
that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by
this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those
who have suffered in this attack.

The statement went on to mention the anti-Islam video that had sparked the
demonstrations:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to
inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores
any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our
commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our
nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent
acts of this kind.

While all this was happening, conservative bloggers and Republicans were
seizing upon the statements from the Cairo embassy as an opportunity to
criticize the Obama Administration for showing weakness in the face of
attacks. Some of them were confusing the timing of the statements,
mistakenly suggesting they were put out after the demonstrations and
incursions had begun. Evidently fearful that it was was politically
vulnerable, the Obama Administration moved to distance itself—a pretty
disreputable move, given what its diplomats had just gone through. “The
statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not
reflect the views of the United States government,” an Administration
official told Byron Tau, a reporter for Politico, who promptly posted a
story<http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/09/white-house-disavows-cairo-apology-135247.html>headlined,
“Obama administration disavows Cairo apology.” (The embassy
statement was not actually an apology, but that had been lost, too.)

That wasn’t enough for the Romney campaign. It had prepared a statement
that was embargoed until midnight, thereby keeping to the 9/11 truce. But
as things hotted up it decided to move early. At 10:09 P.M., according to
an informative backgrounder<http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/romney-balances-911-civility-and-outraged-cairo-r>at
Buzzfeed, Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, e-mailed reporters with a
ready-to-use statement from
Romney<http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2012/09/statement-developments-libya-and-egypt-1>that
said,

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.

Once Romney’s inflammatory statement hit the Internet, a frenzy ensued on
Twitter and the political Web sites, with reporters parsing the various
statements and speculating about the deleted embassy
tweets<http://www.buzzfeed.com/nycsouthpaw/us-embassy-in-cairo-deletes-controversial-tweets>.
By midnight, several other G.O.P. heavies had criticized the
Administration, including Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican
National Committee. “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and
pathetic,” Priebus tweeted <https://twitter.com/Reince>. And Sarah Palin
also weighed in. In a lengthy post <http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin>on
her Facebook page, she said: “Apparently, President Obama can’t see Egypt
and Libya from his house…. We already know that President Obama likes to
‘speak softly’ to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a ‘big stick’ to carry,
maybe it’s time for him to grow one.”

The Obama campaign pushed back. Just after midnight, Ben LaBolt, a
spokesman for the Obama campaign, sent an e-mail to reporters that said,
“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is
confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya,
Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.”

That was about it for Tuesday night. This morning came the news that four
U.S. officials in Benghazi, not one, had been killed while attempting to
flee the besieged consulate, and that Ambassador Stevens was among them.
But this news didn’t persuade Romney to change his tone—far from it.
Appearing at a hastily arranged press conference in Jacksonville, he reiterated
his earlier criticisms<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57511244-503544/romney-doubles-down-on-criticism-of-white-houses-response-to-egypt-libya-attacks/>,
saying,

The president takes responsibility not just for the words that come from
his mouth, but also for the words that come from his ambassadors, from his
Administration, from his embassies, from his State Department. They clearly
sent mixed messages to the world. The statement that came from the
Administration—and the embassy is the Administration—the statement that
came from the Administration was a statement which is akin to apology. And
I think was a severe miscalculation.

Other Republicans struck a more conciliatory note. On Capitol Hill, John
Boehner, the Speaker of the House, ordered flags to be lowered to
half-mast. Reince Preibus tweeted, “Our prayers are w/Ambassador Stevens’
family and the families of those killed in the attacks in Libya. We mourn
their loss and grieve w/them.”

Shortly after ten-thirty this morning, President Obama and Secretary of
State Clinton appeared
together<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/12/president-obama-discusses-attack-benghazi-libya>in
the White House Rose Garden. The President paid tribute to Stevens and
his dead colleagues, and he vowed to exact justice on the perpetrators. He
also referenced the video that started it all, saying,

We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But
there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence.
None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal
acts.

The “severe miscalculation” may have been Romney’s.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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