The Mormon Did It

Anti-American protesters gathered in Morroco to chant “Death to Obama,” “following protests in Cairo and Libya Tuesday, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were murdered.”

as many as 400 protesters, many young Islamic activists, crowded along the consulate walls and chanted anti-U.S. statements, including “Death to Obama!” At the time of this report, there had been no reports of violence and the protests were being monitored by a heavy police presence.

Similar protests against the film were reportedly held outside the U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia on Wednesday.

“U.S. embassies in at least seven countries in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucuses are warning of possible anti-American protests,” according to the Associated Press. The seven countries are Armenia, Burundi, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia, Zambia and Egypt. The Washington Post put it succinctly: “anti-American protests break out in the Middle East”. Reports say new clashes have broken out in Cairo around the US Embassy.

Some of the demonstrators – most of whom are young and not bearded like many of the protesters who participated in Tuesday’s rally at the US mission – also hurled fire bombs at the CFS, who in return used gas bombs in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

The battle was moved away from the headquarters of the US embassy after the security personnel forced the frenzied crowd to move back towards the nearby Tahrir Square.

A police vehicle was reportedly set on fire.

Omar Baddar at the Huffington Post detects a deeper problem beneath the surface conflagrations. “Here at home, Islamophobia has grown into a serious problem. We have to undergo a campaign of education, particularly on the right, to bust the myths that anti-Muslim bigots spread, from the imaginary threat of Sharia to misleading terrorism statistics.”

But, again, no campaign of education could ever root out bigotry altogether; the bigots should be marginalized so that no one can get a short-cut to fame by uttering bigotry against Muslims. The media plays a crucial role here: as long as people like Ann Coulter, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are given airtime on major news outlets , the battle to keep anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry out of the mainstream will be an uphill one.

In other words, it’s all Romney’s fault. Or something like that. And his cunning knows no bounds. What is unusual about the current uproar in the Middle East is that somehow Romney has managed to incite both the Arabs and the Jews against President Obama. The Financial Times says the US and Israel are openly at daggers drawn over Iran. President Obama will not even meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits the United States. The leader of the Israeli parliamentary opposition underlined the depth of the antipathy when asked Netanyahu to declare who he hated most: Ahmadinejad or Obama.

He might have to think about that.

Although one might be forgiven for thinking that the popularity of the President has plummeted somewhat in the Middle East, his achievements are certainly historic, having succeeded where no man has before in uniting both the Muslim and the Jew in their dislike of him.

Nothing daunted, President Obama has hit out at Mitt Romney for for playing politics over Libyan consulate attack. “You know, Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later,” Obama said. The President’s remarks were well received in the press. The Guardian says:

Romney faced heavy criticism from across the political spectrum for statements issued on Tuesday evening and repeated at a press conference on Wednesday morning in which he accused the Obama administration of being too ready to apologise for American values.

But with so few besides the press enamored of Obama’s handling of the situation, there should be a reason why more don’t get it; why more people don’t understand the wonderful job the President has been doing. The reason for this is plain to all. It’s Romney’s fault.