Can Romney regain credibility after his Cairo/Libya Embassy blunder?

I think it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values.

This is a false dichotomy. The issue isn't whether 'one were never allowed to criticize the president' but rather whether there are occasions when it would be better not to. Moreover, it draws a false conclusion. Evo's post shows two examples where the opposing candidate supported the president under comparable situations. Reagan defeated an incumbent.

To answer the OP's question, you have to have something before you can regain it.

The problem with the statement

Is that it can easily be parsed as "Our values are self evidently right, and if the values of the 95% of the human race who are not US citizens are different, they are self evidently wrong."

Which would be funny, except that there seem to be people who really believe it.

Romney was right about the content of the embassy statement. Focusing on the timing in order to get him in an otherwise meaningless "gotcha" lie is a pathetic attempt to distract from this. But the media sold it well and people are buying it; hook, line and sinker.

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.

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.

It's Romney's own words, not "what the media said" Romney was wrong.

Romney said

Please show us where in the original embassy message below that they "sympathize with those who waged the attacks". Not to mention no attacks had even been made yet.

Addressed in the other thread, with the caveat that you're trying to set an unreasonable bar. Neither an apology nor sympathy require use of the words "apology" or "sympathy", only statements that fit the definition.

Did the U.S. embassy in Cairo make an apology?

What three apology experts say

To explore whether the statement represented an apology, we sent it to the four experts we interviewed for our previous fact-check on Romney's claim about Obama's apology tour. Here are the comments of the three who responded:

•John Murphy, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies presidential rhetoric and political language, said Romney was wrong to label it an apology.

"First, the statement does not use the word ‘apology’ or ‘apologize’ and does not use any synonym for that word. There is no statement here that says, ‘We are sorry.’

"Second, the grammar of the statement condemns the actions of a third party. An apology, to be pedantic, is when the first party says to the second party, ‘I have offended you and I am sorry.’ This statement condemns a third party -- misguided individuals -- that does not officially represent the United States. The term ‘individuals’ dissociates them from the U.S. Therefore, it's impossible to say that this is an apology from the U.S. to anyone.

"Third, the statement does not apologize for the right of free speech; it affirms it. It condemns those who abuse the right of free speech, but it claims that this is a universal right, as is religious toleration. So, the statement does not like what the misguided individuals said and did, but recognizes they have a right to do it."

"It's a condemnation," Murphy said, "not an apology."

• Lauren Bloom, an attorney and business consultant who wrote The Art of the Apology, said that Romney is "once again allowing his emotional allergy to apology to interfere with his judgment."

Bloom said that "if there's anything more central to American values than respecting each individual's right to worship as he or she pleases, I'd be hard-pressed to say what it might be. The statement that ‘respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy’ not only is true, but is as clear an expression of one of our most cherished values as I can imagine."

She said the embassy statement is "not an apology -- quite the contrary, it's a confirmation that the American people recognize the right to worship freely and will not accept religious bullying in the name of free speech. To say that someone who deliberately insults others in the name of religion has acted wrongly isn't an apology -- it's simply a recognition that those insults go too far."

• Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a professor who studies international human rights and maintains the website Political Apologies and Reparations, a database of documents on apologies, said the statement is "not an apology."

Rather, she said, "it is a condemnation of ‘abuse’ of the universal value of free speech. A condemnation is not an apology. … The Embassy statement also reaffirms two American values: the American value of respect for religious beliefs and the American value of democracy."

Apology experts? Our grasp of english and common sense is so lacking in credibility that we're to be overruled by apology experts? When PolitiFact, i.e the Tampa Bay Times, wants to get back to things like citing the date of the moon landing or the size of the debt they can get back to me.

So, if you disagree, please post the experts that found an apology to non-existant attackers.

So, if you disagree, please post the experts that found an apology to non-existant attackers.

Q: Was this an implied apology?

An implied apology to whom? Please post the part of the embassy message to which you are referring when you state it's an apology, and please post the part that shows to whom the apology is addressed.

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...

We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.
.

Here, Evo: Those are implied apologies from the embassy for the actions of the makers of the film, to the protesters.

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. 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.

That's not what Romney said, is it?

Those are implied apologies from the embassy for the actions of the makers of the film, to the protesters.

That's not what Romney said, is it?