Republicans were not exactly rushing to defend Mitt Romney's brisk critique of the Obama administration's response to a controversial Web video and the protests it seemed to help spawn. However, by Thursday, the right establishment was starting to circle the wagons around Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential candidate.
Though some have said Mr. Romney might have spoken too soon when he called the Obama administration “disgraceful†after the American Embassy in Cairo issued a statement, that came out before the protests began, condemning the anti-Islam video. Mr. Romney said, “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.†But, The Wall Street Journal dismissed the relevance of chronology.
“Whatever the timing of the Cairo Embassy's statements, Mr. Romney is right that a U.S. Embassy ought to ignore YouTube videos produced by obscure cranks,†wrote The Journal's editorial board, which is a key bellwether of conservative sentiment. The editorial concluded: “His political faux pax was to offend a pundit class that wants to cede the foreign policy debate to Mr. Obama without thinking seriously about the trouble for America that is building in the world.â€
However, one of the pundits who might have been offended was a conservative Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan. The embassy attacks that left four Americans dead were a “water's edge moment,†she said in a video posted Wednesday afternoon. “And everybody should cool it, absorb, think and then say only serious and meaningful things, and never allow themselves to look lik e they are using it as a political opportunity. Romney looked weak today.â€
Still, the Republican nominee had other high-profile defenders on the right. Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush's spokesman, tried to cast an earlier controversial remark by Mr. Romney as a prescient insight. Referring to Mr. Romney's July suggestion that cultural differences explain economic disparities between Israel and the Palestinian territories, Mr. Fleischer issued a series of Twitter messages on Thursday morning:
(1/3)Remember Romney's remark in Israel about culture and why some nations prosper?
- Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) 13 Sep 12
(2/3) What does it say about a culture where some (not all) “write†movie reviews with rocket propelled grenades and murder?
- Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) 13 Sep 12
(3/3) And that assumes the movie actually had anything to do with the 9/11/12 attacks.
- Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) 13 Sep 12
The conservative blogger Erick Erickson's argument that the media has “beclowned themselves†is also bouncing around the right side of the blogosphere. Rather than reporting on the facts on the ground in North Africa and how the White House was responding, he writes, “the media wanted to focus on Mitt Romney.â€
And when Mr. Erickson concludes by focusing on Mr. Romney himself, he writes that the candidate's statement was no gaffe, but a simple statement of his views: “He, I, and many others really do think Barack Obama is an apologist.â€
