The U.S. Embassy in Cairo, three days ago:
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.
Mitt Romney, two days ago, commenting on the above:
… a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt …it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values … a disgraceful statement … effectively apologizing for the right of free speech is not the right course.
The idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn’t do it. Of course, we have a First Amendment. And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.
Aside from being less well expressed - despite being delivered at leisure and in safety - what’s the difference between what Romney said and what he denounced the Embassy staff for saying? (To be precise, Romney denounced Barack Obama for being President while the Embassy staff was saying it.)
Naturally, Stephanopoulos didn’t call him on it. But others will.
I take it back…
Romney isn’t a perfectly lubricated quantum weather vane.
He is a Klein bottle filled with unbounded ambition and coated with Teflon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle
How does Doktor Schrödinger get the cat into the Klein bottle?
Since commenters can’t post images, let me come to koreyel’s aid by providing a nice photo of a nested Klein bottle in the London Science Museum. The inmost one is presumably labelled “tax returns.”
“But others will.”
I would hope that they would, but why expect this to happen when Stephanopoulos dropped the ball? By tomorrow, it will be “old news,” and everyone will say, “Time to move on.”
The basic sloth of Stephanopoulos and his colleagues continues to amaze me. I do not understand this phenomenon.
You might not understand it, but Mitt does! After all, in the Stephanopoulous interview, he also says, “Well, people aren’t going to sit down and read a book.” That would be lot to expect from them, don’t you think?
But really, Romney says in the interview with Stephanopoulos “But I think the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren’t true”, which certainly demonstrates a lot of brass, as Clinton would say. Wouldn’t you expect a journalist to ask for an example? At least one? What ghastly sin did we commit to be punished with this kind of “journalist” and this kind of discourse?
Starting to wonder if for TV folks who aspire to be reporters if the most important thing isn’t to ask penetrating questions but to maintain access to bigwig interviewees. And, such access will not be granted if tough questions are asked.
Romney needed a big “journalist” name on a big show to just let him come on TV and talk, unchallenged, in an attempt to get past his Cairo/Benghazi meltdown. The bigger the name and show, the more valuable to Romney. I wonder what kind of agreement is reached beforehand to make sure Stephanopoulos will comply.
And you know there are upcoming “journalists” out there watching and thinking, “I get it! I know how, and I am willing to DO that too! Big Time, here I come!”
And up and coming journalists know they better not stick a microphone in Stephanopoulos’ face to ask him why he didn’t do his job. Because if they do, they will NEVER see the big time show-journalism bucks.
I think that H and T make sense of this phenomenon. “Journalists” like the current batch need access to public figures in order to grab ratings and advance their careers. I suddenly remembered an interview Rita Braver did with John Ashcroft back during the “Global War On Terror” in which Ashcroft said that Bush and Chaney had told him never to let 9/11 happen again. Rita Braver dropped her jaw and said, “Wasn’t that an awesome responsibility?” as she nearly gushed all over the attorney general. And I remember thinking, “Next time she calls his office for an interview, he is going to return her call.” If she had grilled him about torture and extraordinary rendition, she could be certain that she had had her last interview with a major administration figure.
I liked the journalist who apologized for not doing followup questions to Akin. His defense was that he had been hearing so much nonsense that he had become sort of immune and stopped noticing it.