Roy Blunt is evidently so besotted with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney that he feels bound to echo Romney’s disgusting response to the tragedy at the Libyan embassy. Or maybe it’s just that since Jim DeMint and Bobby Jindal have put themselves out there for the Mittster, Roy thinks it’s safe to venture out to beat the bushes for Mitt too. According to a report at the St. Louis NPR Website:

Blunt echoed many of Romney’s complaints. “Apologizing for America is not the way you’re going to advance your cause, particularly in the Middle East,” he said.  Blunt also criticized the President for taking too long to bolster security at embassies.  “Seems late to me,” Blunt said. “But better late than never, I suppose.”

Of course nobody is apologizing for America. That’s just one more GOP fiction trotted out to whet the appetites of their Obama-hating base. Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post  fact-checker demolished that allegation, and, in spite of the allergic reaction to facts and fact-checkers evinced by the Romney campaign and, now, Roy Blunt, some of us still care about reality.

As a matter of fact, if folks like Blunt weren’t so determined to milk votes out of every bigot able to spell his own name, they might have been a little more careful over the past few years about statements that help to legitimate the rage of anti-Muslim nativists, who, like belligerent drunks in a bar, seem determined to provoke violent Islamic fundamentalists – with nary a thought about our soldiers and diplomatic personnel serving in Islamic countries. As for the free speech issues Romney et al. seem to be hinting at, I think Andrew Sullivan put it very succinctly:

I’m a free speech absolutist – but I’m not an anti-religion absolutist. I think a little respect for religions we don’t share is something most Americans would think is precisely an American value. I can see why there should have been a defense of the free speech of Terry Jones in that tweet in principle – and there is: “the universal right of free speech.” Does Romney think the administration should have defended the film itself? Does Romney?

Does Roy Blunt? The real pièce de résistance though, is Blunt’s ham-handed effort to defend Mitt Romney’s lunatic attack on the President:

When asked if he was disappointed that this tragedy has become a political issue, Senator Blunt responded. “Of course they (the presidential candidates) responded to it. If they hadn’t responded to it, they’d both be roundly criticized for having nothing to say about it.”

Evidently Blunt can’t distinguish between responding to a tragedy, which is what President Obama calmly, competently did, and attempting to make political hay out of a disaster – and potentially endangering even more Americans in diplomatic posts.