COMMENTARY | He’s pretty much the last guy anyone (on the right or left) wants to hear from, but that doesn’t stop Todd Akin from sharing his perspective on the recent attacks on US Embassies in Egypt and Libya and the admittedly weak US response to those incidents.
Echoing Mitt Romney’s remarks/attacks/poorly-timed opinions regarding President Obama’s response to the Cairo embassy’s statement , Representative Todd Akin has also criticized what he perceives to be weakness on the part of the POTUS in dealing with the riots. Unfortunately, he takes a detour from a proper and important point into a familiar yet really-kind-of-pointless criticism that Obama hates America. But what did we expect?
A quick recap: A large group of ultraconservative Muslims attacked a US embassy in Cairo over a film that portrays Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, in a extremely offensive and unflattering light . Concrete details on the film are still sparse and confusing , but the group that attacked the embassy apparently blames the US government for the film, stormed the embassy, tore down the flag, and flew a black flag in its place. A similar attack in Libya claimed the lives of several American officials, and unrest in the Middle East is at an all-time high.
We argued before that the US government bears no responsibility for the film , making an American apology a moot and pointless contrivance. However, that didn’t stop condemnations from the US Embassy and the Obama administration on the anti-Islamist film, which in itself would be a righteous point if it wasn’t bereft of any clear condemnation of the wanton violence of the attacks.
Enter Todd Akin, echoing sentiments that should contain a valid point (that we shouldn’t apologize) from the worst possible source , quickly unraveling into rabid rhetoric , which, let’s not forget, politicizes the issue even more and takes the eyes off the victims and the troubling incidents that have occurred.
“First of all, apologizing to all people, [to] a lot of countries who are enemies, and apologizing to them and everything. You know, if we did something wrong, that’s one thing. But he’s just apologizing because he didn’t like America? I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”
Way to take an important point out of the conversation, Todd. Watch:
[iframe src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/ieG6ypAPRX8? width=”560? height=”315?]