To understand why Mitt Romney was so quick to condemn President Obama for “sympathizing with those who waged the attacks†in Libya, some clues can be found in Mr. Romney's 325-page political manifesto, “No Apology,†whose very title encapsulates his approach to such moments.
In the book, published almost three years ago, Mr. Romney, the Republican nominee, repeatedly returns to the same conclusion: President Obama is overly sensitive to the grievances of America's enemies, especially in the Muslim world.
For Mr. Romney, Mr. Obama's very first overseas trip represented a moment of treachery, because the new president expressed reservations about American conduct abroad under President Geo rge W. Bush. Mr. Romney called it “Obama's American Apology Tour,†even though the president at no time apologized for America. (The title of Mr. Romney's book is a play on that idea.)
“Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined,†Mr. Romney wrote. “It is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them.â€
This argument underpins an even more expansive theory, promoted by several of Mr. Romney's foreign policy advisers, that has guided his thinking: that under Mr. Obama, America has sought to build relationships with countries (like Iran and Russia) that pose a threat to the United State s, while forsaking trusted allies (Israel and Poland).
Mr. Romney addressed this in “No Apology,†writing that “if President Obama has won the praise of America's enemies, he has too often turned his back on America's allies.†A case in point, Mr. Romney writes, was Mr. Obama's decision to “shelve President Bush's plan to build a missile-defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to “reset†our relations with Russia.
It is unknown, at the moment, whether Mr. Romney understood the full scale of the violence against American diplomats and staff members in Libya when he issued his statement Tuesday night calling Mr. Obama's reaction “a disgrace,†a critique that has led to accusations by Democrats that he was politicizing an unfolding crisis overseas with American lives at stake.
But what is clear is that the sentiment and thinking behind Mr. Romney's statement has deep and strong roots.
