In a statement Monday night, Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with the Libyan protesters who attacked a consulate in Benghazi, reportedly killing the U.S. ambassador and two other embassy officials.
“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” 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.”
Romney has often tried to sharpen the contrast between his foreign policy and Obama’s by arguing that the president is apologetic towards America’s enemies.
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responded a few hours later that it was Romney who was out of line. “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” he said.
Protests in Libya and Egypt appear to have been sparked by clips of a film produced by Sam Bacile, a California real estate developer who calls himself an Israeli Jew. The film calls the prophet Muhammad a fraud and depicts him having sex; pieces of the film were put on YouTube and showed on a Cairo television station.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms.” adding that while the United States “deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others … there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”
Hours before the ambassador’s death was reported, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo issued a statement saying that it condemns “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”
