Yesterday started as a day where Americans should have felt united in our commemoration of the tragedy that occurred on September 11th, 2001. The two presidential campaigns had seemingly agreed to avoid major attacks today and almost the whole country was focused on remembering that tragic day and the unity that followed.
However, just like the trajectory of this Presidency, it went downhill rather fast due to the reality of incompetence and failure that permeates this administration. Apologies in the face of attacks and lack of solemn awareness of a national tragedy plagued the administration yesterday.
The first issue arose on social media. While the Mitt Romney Twitter account properly started off the day with a statement about 9/11, many users noticed that the Barack Obama account did something very different. That account sent a tweet asking for campaign volunteers. It was not until the afternoon – when thousands of users retweeted and pointed out the offensive nature of not mentioning 9/11 – that the President sent a personal tweet on the subject. This was pure incompetence on the part of the President’s social media team.
In addition, the Obama campaign also chose to spend this sacred day attacking private citizens supporting Romney and releasing deceptive ads about Romney. That, however, was just the start of today’s failures for this administration.
A few hours later, two important reports surfaced showing a huge and troubling divide between this administration and the leaders of one of our primary allies, Israel. The Obama administration has been arguing for weeks that the two governments were on the same page and that cooperation between the two countries had never been closer, but yesterday definitely proved otherwise.
First, there was a clear message from the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the refusal of Washington D.C. to set a clear deadline for Iran to stop pursuing Nuclear Weapons was unacceptable.
Then, an Israeli paper reported that Netanyahu had requested a meeting with President Obama while he would be in America and the President had declined. Considering the severity of the situation with Iran and the previous close nature of our countries, this was an absolutely shocking revelation. When confronted with the claim, the Obama administration blamed “scheduling” conflicts and a separate U.S. official essentially claimed Netanyahu was the one in the wrong for going to the press with the rejection. Israel is considered one of our closest allies, but the relationship appears to be very strained under this Administration.
Finally, the most shocking event occurred overseas. Several U.S. embassies were attacked throughout the world by radical Islamists protesting a film on YouTube made by Egyptian Christians living in America that depicted the prophet Mohammad in a poor light.
In Egypt, protestors were upset about the film and climbed the US Embassy building in Cairo, tore down the American flag and replaced it with a black Islamist flag, similar to one used by Al Qaeda. Apparently the idea that America unequivocally supports the idea of freedom of speech and expression is cause for Egyptian protestors to desecrate our embassy overseas.
This incident occurred just a week after details of an Obama administration plan to forgive Egypt $1 billion in debt were released. Furthermore, Egypt is supposedly a primary example of the success of the Obama-promoted Arab Spring, which was supposed to significantly improve U.S. relations with the Arab world.
However, the most shameful part of this incident was the response by the U.S. Embassy and Obama State Department. Instead of blaming the violent protestors, the U.S. embassy stated they condemn “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” This sentiment is embarrassing and profoundly un-American.
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke this morning to a crowd of U.S. media condemning the administration’s apologetic response to these attacks, calling it a “disgraceful statement on the part of the administration to apologize for American values.”
One of the cornerstones of America is our belief in the sacred right to free speech, even if that speech hurts someone’s feelings. The idea that our government is condemning speech instead of the violent extremists that react to it is beyond repulsive, as it should be to most sensible Americans. This was followed up with the State Department unbelievably claiming there was no reason to conclude there is a growing anti-American sentiment in Egypt based on today’s events.
Both the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the Obama Presidency began with feelings of unity and hope and they became embarrassing spectacles filled with failure, embarrassment and incompetence. The news of these events shall pass, but the question remains: how much longer will Americans put up with events like these?
We deserve better.
