Will the real America stand up and lead?

In this edition of “News you missed if you’ve been under a rock,” we’re talking about the deaths of a US Ambassador and three diplomats in Libya.

According to the Washington Post, the attacks following rioting Cairo, Egypt, and may have been planned and resulted in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans during an assault on the consulate in the city of Benghazi in Libya.

Ostensibly, the cause was a low-budget film by a Jewish filmmaker in California that was purported to show poorly make-uped Caucasian with bad accents playing Islamic rioters attacking Christians, among other “things”:

It depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a bumbling idiot, born out-of-wedlock and making up verses to the Islamic holy book to suit his purposes and desires. The film also shows him as having intimate relations with women and suggests that he was gay.

Any flesh-and-blood depiction of Muhammad is offensive to Muslims.

According to the Post, the filmmaker has gone into hiding.

Meanwhile, the tragedy took less than a New York minute to become a political hot-button. After the American embassy in Cairo appeared to apologize for the filmmaker’s attack on Islam instead of stand up for American freedom of speech, the Mitt Romney said the statement amounted to “an apology for American principles.”

The embassy’s original statement on Tuesday condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims–as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

Later, once the situation began to escalate, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo said on Twitter: “This morning’s condemnation (issued before the protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy.”

By Wednesday morning, Obama was responding.

Mr. Obama, speaking shortly after his Republican challenger, said there was “no justification” for the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats but that the incident “will not break the bonds” between the two nations.

“Make no mistake, justice will be done,” the president added. He didn’t elaborate.

The economy may be the issue this election, and foreign policy may be a weak place for Barack Obama (see my comments on that topic here), but Mitt Romney’s response–both in timing and in tone–left the Washington Post and the New York Times leveling critiques just short of calling Romney unpatriotic.

The New York Times thought he should hold his fire and “stand by the US government.”

Mr. Romney could easily have held his fire during this crisis, if he could not summon the decency to support the United States government. Instead, he misrepresented the administration as showing “sympathy” to the mob in Benghazi. There was no truth in what he said. In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the first official comment on the killings, a strong condemnation, just after Mr. Romney released his statement. Even after having a night to reconsider his response, Mr. Romney merely doubled down on his false charges, as he is prone to do.

Meanwhile, at the Washington Post:

At a news conference, Mr. Romney claimed that the administration had delivered “an apology for America’s values.” In fact, it had done no such thing: Religious tolerance, as much as freedom of speech, is a core American value. The movie that provoked the protests, which mocks the prophet Mohammed and portrays Muslims as immoral and violent, is a despicable piece of bigotry; it was striking that Mr. Romney had nothing to say about such hatred directed at a major religious faith.

Me thinks that the Post confuses tolerance with freedom, and misses that tolerance should never be enforced with violence, nor should it be violence be appeased.

But back to the political: much ado about nothing or is there a real bone for contention here?

In many ways, the Romney response was undiplomatic. It was hurried, it was before sufficient intelligence about what was going on had emerged, and it was broad and ham handed. On the other hand, it was not necessarily wrong. Perhaps it is only the tact that is missing, but not the message.

Ben Stein might have put it better…and indeed, he thinks so, as he writes the speech Romney could have, or could still, give:

Let me be clear about this: Mr. Obama is wrong. We have complete freedom of speech in this country. We do not apologize to mobs of thugs and bullies for our residents having free speech. When I take office, the era of apologizing to foreign thugs and bandits for the United States of America and our freedoms is over. We are not ashamed of being a free country. We are proud of it.

“We expect the governments of Egypt and Libya and all other nations to do their duty under law to protect our embassies. If they can’t, we will take appropriate action. We are not going to be pushed around and we are not going to be bullied by gangsters and we are not going to apologize for the Constitution.

This, then, is the crux of the divide between the cultures on the left and the right, a view of the world is just plain different. On the first are those who want a unified and international feeling of peace and amity, brought about on terms of mutual kindness and respect. In that world, the international community rules by consensus. In the latter, we see a world view that puts nation first, and all others second. The rights and powers granted by the rule of law and by the constitution are prime. It is, perhaps, more pessimistic, but it is the realist view. The international stage is dangerous, and it is state against state, and only mutual interests bring alignment.

In that world, apologies demonstrate weakness, not mutual approbation.

As Bart Marcois, a career diplomat with years of experience in the Middle East puts it, Obama’s response when the embassy in Cairo was occupied was “pusillanimous” and only sowed the seeds of the deaths in Libya.

When extremists in Libya saw their brethren in Cairo successfully humiliate America, and pay no price for it, they knew it was open season on Americans. They followed suit, but were more violent, and did not stop at replacing and desecrating the flag. Obama’s reaction to the killing echoed the statement from Embassy Cairo: he condemned the killing, but was more specific in his condemnation of the people who made the film. His soft answer will jeopardize the lives and safety of our other diplomats everywhere in the world.

And what was our president doing yesterday afternoon while this was unfolding? A radio interview with a Miami DJ known as “The Pimp with the Limp.” When asked how he was doing, our commander-in-chief answered, “Blessed and highly favored.” He said how honored he was to be on the show: “You’ve got Pitbull and Flo Rida and all these guys just beating a path to your door.” That is how he chose to spend September 11, and what he did while our Embassy was occupied.

People who govern most countries in the world understand that leadership requires respect. We should have earned the love and gratitude of most nations, but no wise leader expects to receive it, or bases foreign policy upon it. A wise leader knows that the world stage includes actors who understand only respect, or fear. Obama is not that leader.

Not long ago, the same thugs that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens were blessed with American missiles and bombs in their drive to eliminate Muammar Gaddafi. The Obama Administration may have counted that one as a victory for a “lead from behind” foreign policy, but like the snake brought down from the mountain that bites in its time, we knew what they were when we picked them up. Should we be so surprised now?

Could Romney have better delivered his message? No doubt about it. Romney’s response may not have been well-timed or well said, but it demonstrates Americans’ disenchantment at what is missing from the Obama Administration’s foreign policy: a willingness to stand up for American values and let America lead again.

[Washington Post][WSJ][NYT][American Spectator][Daily Caller]