“The high point of that debate for Romney is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of Obama going around the world on ‘an apology tour,’” Charles Krauthammer asserted on the Fox News Channel following Monday night’s third presidential debate. But what Krauthammer saw as so powerful for Mitt Romney, ABC and CNN tried to discredit based on the flimsy reasoning that Obama didn’t use the word “apologize.”
ABC’s Jonathan Karl insisted: “The President didn’t apologize for America...there’s no way you could really call it ‘an apology tour.’” With a big “False” on screen, CNN’s John Berman decided: “Our verdict here is it is false to call the President’s speeches ‘an apology tour’ even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy. He issued no apologies.”
Krauthammer on FNC on Monday night:
The high point of that debate for Romney is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of Obama going around the world on an apology tour. Obama’s answer was ask any reporter and they will tell you it wasn’t so. It’s about as weak an answer you can get and Romney’s response to say, to quote Obama saying that we “dictate” to other nations and Romney said we do not dictate to other nations, we liberate them. And Obama was utterly speechless.
Indeed, Obama had contended “every fact-checker and every reporter who’s looked at it, Governor, has said this is not true.”
And two TV reporters immediately came through for Obama.
From ABC News:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Any glaring misstatements by either candidate?
JONATHAN KARL: Well, there were a couple. One was when Mitt Romney repeated what he said before, that the President went on an apology tour when he became President. We’ve looked at all those speeches in those first foreign trips . The President didn’t apologize for America. He did acknowledge some mistakes that the United States had made, but there’s no way you could really call it an “apology tour.”
Karl proceeded to also recount a misstatement by Obama.
John Berman, formerly of ABC News, on CNN:
When the President took office, he did travel to several countries talking about American foreign policy. In France, for example, he said America has shown arrogance and had been dismissive, even derisive, though he also criticized Europe in that very same speech. And in none of these speeches, none of them, in Europe or the Middle East, or here at home, did President Obama used the word apology or say he’s sorry.
So our verdict here is it is “false” to call the President’s speeches an “apology tour,” even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy. He issued no apologies.
Heritage Foundation’s “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower [1]”
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here [2] to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.