consulate in benghazi and romney came under criticism for the initial response to the violence there. the statement released shortly before egyptian protesters stormed that embassy s compound read in part, quote, 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. so, matt, you were critical this week of mitt romney s response to the events. how so? i think there s a very hamhanded response. it was happening, you could quibble with the embassy statements, i think i would, although we re not in that building at the time it s issued and trying to calm down the rampaging mob outside of your walls. the problem here, the story is not the embassy statement, the story are the attacks on u.s. missions overseas. and i can understand the impulse to try and step in
the world. an extremely abbreviated time line, the question for us here on news watch, how did the media react or fail to react to the news and the real issues surrounding these events. let s first go to fox news correspondent shannon bream for more. late tuesday, mitt romney released a statement calling the initial response to the attacks in egypt disgraceful saying they appeared to quote, sympathize with those who waged attacks and that original response came in the the form of an embassy statement which secretary of state hillary clinton had reportedly rejected and senior officials say the white house never approved. yet, despite the distance the administration seemed to want between it and the embassy statements, only romney seems to be taking the heat for criticizing it. this statement looks craft and tone deaf in the light of this and the columnist called it unwise, inaccurate and
that the obama administration had sympathized with the attackers. the embassy of the united states issued what appeared to be an apology for american principles. i want to be clear, it is never too early for the united states to condemn attacks on americans, on our properties, and to defend our values. but romney s tone softened considerably. he sounded remarkably similar to the embassy statement he had criticized when he discussed the film in an interview with abc news on thursday. it s dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say and the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then para parading that at them in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. if romney was trying to take the high road, his advisors did not. richard william son told the washington post that, quote, there he is a pretty compelling
sometimes cool words or no words is the way to go. a number of experts also rebuked romney. one senior foreign policy p hand called it an utter disaster and said it was romney s lehman moment to the financial crisis back in 2008. he said, they were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it s just completely blown up and a former aide said, it s bad. just on a factual level that the statement was not a response but one could make the statement precipitating and just calling it a disgrace is not really cutting it. not ready for primetime. we ll be right back.
be asked and would be asked if this had happened on george bush s watch. megyn: is there a question about whether the administration should have been more forceful in disavowing those embassy statement? what they were apologizes for was a clip from a film by a private u.s. citizen. this was not a u.s. marine who did something like we saw in the koran burnings. this was a private citizen. it was rather extraordinary that the u.s. embassy engaged on that issue. i m shocked it took the obama administration as long as it did to pull that back. governor romney was right to make the substantive critique that he did. the big issue with media bias is this question of what s news? that s where the bias manifests most often. rather than seeing as bill suggested, rather than seeing