By Jeffrey Lord on 9.14.12 @ 10:26AM
There is a remarkable piece in today's Washington Post by the paper's Ruth Marcus.
Titled "Romney Owes an Apology," it's a stunning example of leftist appeasement that exhibits precisely the reasons appeasers from Neville Chamberlain to Jimmy Carter always wind up getting their nations in trouble.
Ms. Marcus is upset that Governor Romney has previously described President Obama in this fashion:
"There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them."
This, says Marcus, is a "falsehood."
Then she linked -- seriously -- to a timeline of events that emphasize -- hello? -- exactly how dumbfounding not to mention naïve is Marcus's reading of events.
Marcus triumphantly quotes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this way:
"Let me be clear," Hillary Clinton's statement said. "There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."
What Marcus deliberately leaves out, of course, is the apologetic sentence that preceded those words. The full Clinton quote reads like this:
"Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."
In other words, Clinton begins her statement by doing precisely what drew Romney's ire in the first place. She apologizes to a group of Islamic fanatics by trying to say "By the way…really…we're so sorry…we really believe in religious tolerance…we're not anti-Muslim. Honest. Please don't be mad at us. We like you."
Is Marcus truly that naïve that she doesn't understand the signal of weakness statements like Clinton's send to American enemies who are, as always, probing for weakness in the American leadership? Does she not understand why, years ago, no less than Osama Bin Laden famously said of America: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."
Answer: Yes, Ruth Marcus, like liberals everywhere, really is that naive.
The idea of America as the weak horse plays perfectly with statements like those not only first issued by the Cairo Embassy -- but by the words and actions of both Secretary Clinton and President Obama. These people are telegraphing -- OK, make that texting -- weakness to the world.
Marcus's column is exactly the famous rationale behind Neville Chamberlain's perpetual annoyance with Winston Churchill. If he could just get Churchill to shut up, Chamberlain believed, things would just be fine with Herr Hitler.
Marcus ends her column by saying, "There is something disgraceful happening here…"
Marcus is right. There is something disgraceful happening here. But it isn't Mitt Romney's Reaganesque willingness to stand up for freedom.
It's Ruth Marcus's inability to understand that weakness leads inevitably to disaster.
Should Mitt Romney apologize?
Of course not.
What Mitt Romney should do is press the point -- just as Ronald Reagan pressed the very same point against Jimmy Carter.
What Mitt Romney needs to do is get on with winning this election -- before a government that thinks like Ruth Marcus brings on complete disaster.
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