The campaign for Mitt Romney was put on the line when the presidential hopeful issued a statement that attacked President Barack Obama and the diplomats in the Middle East who were under siege from the insurgent attack Wednesday morning. Romney said that the way Obama handled the attacks in Libya as ‘disgraceful.’ He also criticized embassy officials in Cairo and the president, according to the Huffington Post.
“When our grounds are being attacked, and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation. And apology for America’s values is never the right course,” he said. Romney also said that the administration was “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.”
When Romney mentioned the ‘apology for America’s values,’ he was referring to a statment the U.S. Embassy in Cairo released Tuesday. The statement reads:
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.
Romney even cancelled a campaign event the day of the attacks and held a press conference instead. Romney, at the conference, said, “The embassy in Cairo put out a statement after their grounds had been breached, protesters were inside the grounds. They reiterated that statement after the breach. I think it’s a — a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values.”
Romney continued, “It’s their administration. Their administration spoke. The president takes responsibility not just for the words that come from his mouth but also from the words of his ambassadors, from his administration, from his embassies, from his State Department. They clearly sent mixed messages to the world. The statement that came from the administration — and the embassy is the administration — the statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology. And I think was a severe miscalculation.”
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared together in the Rose Garden Wednesday to discuss the Libyan attack. “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Obama said when talking about the video that reportedly caused the attack. “But there is no justification for this kind of violence. None.”
“Today many Americans are asking — indeed, I ask myself — how could this happen,” Clinton said. “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction. This question reflects just how complicated, and at times how confounding, the world can be. But we must be clear-eyed even in our grief: This was an attack by a small and savage group, not the people or the government of Libya.”