Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
4. At some point as this is going on, Romney makes his statement criticizing the apology. He did not "blame Obama". He blamed "the administration". At the risk of stating the obvious, the executive branch is responsible for our embassies.
CNN wrote:
Tuesday morning in Egypt, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo released a statement stating it "condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims." The statement came after protests erupted in parts of the Arab world in response to an online video found offensive by Muslims.
While the statement doesn't specifically mention the video, it says the embassy "firmly reject(s) the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
After the statement, protesters began to breach the embassy in Cairo, where ultimately several men scaled the walls of the mission and tore down its American flag.
[...]
At 10:10 p.m. ET, Romney's campaign released an embargoed (until midnight) statement blasting
the Obama administration. The statement had a veiled reference to the Egypt embassy's statement that condemned offensive speech against Muslims and referred to it as the administration's "first response":
"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."
He didn't blame "the" administration, he made point to mention Obama.
Yes. "The Obama Administration". WTF? You get that he's the president and therefore the head of the executive branch. We're not talking about an off the record statement made by some junior bureaucrat here. We're talking about an official statement released by our embassy. No one's saying that Obama himself said those words. But he is responsible for them. His policies set the diplomatic tone around the world, which our embassies reflect. I suppose if the statement were out of the blue, you might have a point, but the approach of apologizing to everyone isn't exactly new to this administration, is it?
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He said that the statement was a response to "the attacks", which it was not since no attacks had yet occurred.
Huh? You are confused I suspect. He (Romney) was responding to the statement from the Egyptian embassy. That statement was made in response to growing anger about the video. The statement was repeated in a tweet from the embassy after the grounds had been breached (but prior to the deaths in Libya). Romney was criticizing that statement.
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He connected the statement to the attack in Libya and the death of the the worker when the statement was made well before that attack and wasn't related at all.
You really are confused. Did you even read the site you linked (and follow the links on said page)? It explains it all to you. Why not actually read it?
You appear to be confusing what was known at the time Romney wrote his statement, what was known when the Egyptian embassy made their statements, and what was known when the Obama campaign responded to Romney's statement.
You also seem to be missing the key point: Romney condemned a statement of apology from our embassy made in the early stages of this. The same statement which the Obama administration has now
disavowed. Um... So Romney was right. It just took the Obama administration an extra day to figure it out themselves.
And one might also wonder: If Romney hadn't criticized the statement from the embassy, would the Obama administration have disavowed it? And since they did disavow it *after* he pointed it out, doesn't that mean he was absolutely right to make the criticism? So what's the problem?