In Libya, the imbeciles are winning

Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post reacts to the murder of Christopher Stevens, US Ambassador to Libya: "It is no more accurate to condemn the Muslim world for the atrocities of a relative few than it is to indict America because one lowbrow decides to upload a lousy flick that nobody otherwise would watch or even know about. Hey, demonstrators: Anybody can make a movie. It doesn’t mean anything. And by the way, anybody can burn a Koran. Or a Bible. Or smear feces on a crucifix. Or. . . ad infinitum. We tolerate rudeness because the alternative — state-enforced politeness — leads to the guillotine."

She goes on: "Obama critics have long held that his post-exceptionalist, lead-from-behind model invites only contempt in the Middle East. Since no policy thus far seems to have been very effective, we’ll have to rely on history for more information. On principle, meanwhile, Romney would have been better advised to keep his own counsel pending clarity — always the wiser course. What we clearly must not convey to the Muslim world is that either a random, Koran-burning zealot or an anti-Muhammad filmmaker is remotely relevant to our foreign policy. By apologizing — and later by Romney’s commenting — we made events more of an American problem than they were, as The Post’s David Ignatius recently noted. And we lent unnecessary gravity and impetus to the conduct of imbeciles.

Obviously, they don’t need any help.