The Barrington Tea Party has it on record

The US Embassy in Cairo issued this statement on 9/11/12.

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

The White House has now disavowed this statement as unauthorized – but has not recalled or fired the US Ambassador in Cairo or taken any other action. Instead, the response to advance warning about the possibility of an attack on the US Embassy was to close it down and warn Americans to stay away from it.

A Democrat Analyst isn’t buying Obama’s story
From Kirsten Powers

“Disgusting and reprehensible.” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Truly abhorrent,” an outraged White House official told an international conference. Were they talking about the murder of four Americans in Libya? Or perhaps the hoisting of an Islamist flag over the U.S. Embassy in Cairo?

No. For that they stuck to diplomatic speak. For the president, the harshest language was: “I strongly condemn the outrageous attack.” For Clinton it was that the US is heartbroken and she condemned “this senseless act of violence.” But “disgusting and reprehensible” and “truly abhorrent ” were reserved for an amateurish and silly film by someone nobody has ever heard of.

In fact, what is “disgusting and reprehensible” is that there are people in the world who think they are justified in attacking and killing people because someone hurt their feelings or offended their sensibilities.

James Taranto notes the Memory Hole

But even accepting that formulation, Americans are entitled to ask why our government has failed to take a clear stand on behalf of our values and our basic law. Perhaps the thinking is that a meliorative tone will have a meliorative effect. That certainly seems to have been the impulse behind the U.S. Embassy’s initial statement, now down the memory hole but quoted here Wednesday, sympathizing with the mob that later stormed the grounds. Although the administration has disavowed that particular statement, every public pronouncement from the White House and State Department, including Carney’s today, has been in the same spirit.

Mark Steyn comes out swinging

Hillary Clinton and General Martin Dempsey are guilty of something worse, in the secretary of state’s weirdly obsessive remarks about an obscure film supposedly disrespectful of Mohammed and the chairman of the joint chiefs’ telephone call to a private citizen asking him if he could please ease up on the old Islamophobia.

Forget the free-speech arguments. In this case, as Secretary Clinton and General Dempsey well know, the film has even less to do with anything than did the Danish cartoons or the schoolteacher’s teddy bear or any of the other innumerable grievances of Islam. The 400-strong assault force in Benghazi showed up with RPGs and mortars: That’s not a spontaneous movie protest.

 

image George Orwell, no fan of Memory Holes