From Politico 9/25/12 President Barack Obama used a high-profile speech to the United Nations Tuesday to deliver his most robust defense of the value of freedom of expression since an anti-Muslim video triggered protests against America across the Muslim world.
While Obama's forceful endorsement of free speech rights was delivered to leaders of many regimes that repress critics, the president's message seemed intended as much for a domestic audience: He sought to quiet Republicans who have attacked him for failing to stand up for "American values."
"I know there are some who ask why we don't just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech," Obama told world leaders and delegates gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.
"Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As president of our country, and commander-in-chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so," Obama said, drawing sustained applause.
In the wake of the protests, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and others in the GOP sharply criticized Obama for expressing sympathy with the demonstrators' outrage and not immediately standing up for free speech.
The president's half-hour speech to the United Nations Tuesday also came amid fresh GOP attacks for his decision to delegate the usual one-on-one meetings with world leaders to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, even as Obama made time Monday for a taping of "The View."
Obama's forceful defense of free speech rights included a civics-class-style explanation of why allowing offensive speech and confronting it with other speech is preferable to trying to ban objectionable speech outright.
"Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views -- even views that we disagree with," he said.
The president argued that efforts to suppress free expression are increasingly ineffective in an interconnected world.
"I know that not all countries in this body share this understanding of the protection of free speech. Yet in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete," Obama said.
The president made little mention of Afghanistan during his speech, devoting a clause to a recent suicide bombing and a sentence to promising that "America and our allies will end our war on schedule in 2014."
Obama began his address with a tribute to Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, who was killed earlier this month along with three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The president sought to harness sympathy and outrage over the attack by describing it as a strike on diplomats of all nations and on the entire civilized world.
"The attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They are also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded," Obama said. "If we are serious about those ideals, we must speak honestly about the deeper causes of this crisis. Because we face a choice between the forces that would drive us apart, and the hopes we hold in common."
"Today, we must affirm that our future will be determined by people like Chris Stevens, and not by his killers. Today, we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our United Nations ," Obama said.
The White House initially described the attack that killed Stevens and the three other Americans working for the State Department as an outgrowth of a protest over the anti-Muslim film.
But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Sunday that there was no protest under way at the Benghazi consulate before the sustained, armed assault that killed the four Americans. Published reports say the attack may have been organized by an armed Libyan militia with ties to Al Qaeda.
In Obama's remarks Tuesday, he seemed to blur any distinction between the assault that killed the four Americans in Benghazi, violent demonstrations the film apparently triggered at U.S. diplomatic posts, and other protests inspired by the video.
In his speech, Obama described the violence as an unacceptable over-reaction to the film and emphasized -- as U.S. officials often do with Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism -- that many of the victims are not Americans.
"There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There is no video that justifies an attack on an Embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan," Obama said.
The president also vowed that the U.S. will see to it that Iran's ambitions for nuclear weapons are never fulfilled. He described the situation in Iran as a ticking clock -- but one that may not be ticking quite as fast as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested.
"America wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy, and we believe that there is still time and space to do so. But that time is not unlimited," Obama said. "Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained."
In an interview Tuesday, Romney dismissed the president's Iran remarks as little more than hot air.
"Well, we've heard the president now speak at the United Nations in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, each time showing his commitment to keeping Iran from becoming nuclear and yet Iran gets closer and closer, every year, to having nuclear capability," Romney told CNN. "It's very clear that his policies with regards to Iran have not dissuaded them from becoming nuclear by one iota, in the words of Prime Minister Bebe Netanyahu ...Words are words. You need to show the kind of action that suggests to them that we're serious about what we're saying."
Romney said the tougher stance he would take toward Tehran included "crippling sanctions" he would have begun earlier than Obama did, indicting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad under the Genocide Convention for his comments regarding Israel, and treating Iranian diplomats with the kind of "pariah" status South African officials had under apartheid.
Obama, who recently drew fire from Republicans for calling Israel "one of our closest allies" in the Mideast, made five references to Israel during his speech. He said he views anti-Israeli incitement as of a kind with anti-Americanism and equivalent to other forms of extremism.
"It is time to marginalize those who -- even when not resorting to violence -- use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as a central principle of politics," Obama declared.
Obama also stood squarely behind the notion of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Romney has endorsed that concept as well, but he seemed to be less than optimistic about in secretly-taped remarks he made at a fundraiser in May.
"The road is hard, but the destination is clear -- a secure, Jewish state of Israel, and an independent, prosperous Palestine," Obama said, drawing loud applause from the delegates and others in the hall.
Obama was not silent on the free-speech aspect of the video controversy when it broke out two weeks ago. But he made no reference to the importance of free expression during his first public remarks on the protests and the consulate attack even as he condemned the anti-Muslim video. During an interview with CBS he taped shortly after his initial Rose Garden speech, he did vow to uphold the constitutional right to free speech.
Romney, by contrast, led off with a muscular defense of free speech rights and initially said nothing about the content of the video. Some Romney advisers touted his approach as more responsible while protests were still unfolding. However, within hours, the GOP nominee also condemned the video during an interview with ABC.
The movement of both men on the issue seemed to leave their policies ultimately in about the same place, even as advisers pointed to nuances they said separated them.
In the midst of his reelection bid, Obama has jettisoned the usual schedule of talks with world leaders in favor of a whirlwind, roughly 24-hour visit to New York. It took him and first lady Michelle Obama to a taping of "The View" talk show and a reception for leaders Monday night, to the U.N. Tuesday morning and a Clinton Global Initiative speech around noon Tuesday before he returned to Washington. He heads back out on the campaign trail Wednesday with a visit to Ohio.
"President Obama recently said the broader Middle East has been experiencing some 'bumps in the road,'" said a joint statement Tuesday from Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.). "If the President had taken some time to hold even one meeting with his foreign colleagues during his visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York today, perhaps they would have told him what has really happened in the Middle East on his watch."
Clinton met Monday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Ali Zardari, Libyan leader Mohammed Magariaf and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi for talks that covered many of the same issues Obama referenced in his Tuesday address.
As recently as last month, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama would have "at least a couple of bilateral meetings when he's at the United Nations General Assembly." However, White House aides later said none were planned.
During a briefing last week, White House press secretary Jay Carney did not offer a clear explanation for the lack of leader-to-leader meetings on Obama's schedule. He said the president has been actively engaged by telephone with leaders across the Middle East and North Africa as the recent violence unfolded.