Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) slammed President Barack Obama and his administration on Friday for pursuing a foreign policy of what she called “apology and appeasement” and claiming they played a direct role in enabling the recent attacks in Egypt and Libya that took the lives of four Americans.
Speaking before a fired-up crowd at the 2012 Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., Bachmann said that Obama’s “supposedly genius foreign policy” is now being "exposed for what it really is."
“This isn’t just about a movie,” said Bachmann, referring to the anti-Muslim video that reportedly sparked the protests at U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya. “This was an intentional act that was done by radical Islamists who seek to impose their set of beliefs.”
“We will not stand for it,” she added, to resounding applause.
Bachmann’s words echo those of a growing number of Republicans who have spoken out against the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis, after Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney came under fire for accusing the president of apologizing for the incident and “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.”
Party members were initially reticent to join Romney’s charge, which was widely criticized for misstating the facts of the events. But on Friday, Bachmann said in unequivocal terms that the attacks that unfolded this week are a clear indication that Obama has "communicated weakness and lack of resolve to the world."
“The president seems insistent on apologizing for who we are as Americans,” she said, adding that Obama is “following a strategy of complete defeat."
Bachmann sparked controversy earlier this year for saying Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood may have infiltrated the U.S. government. But after facing condemnation over the statements from her own party, the Minnesota congresswoman took a brief hiatus from her running theme of warning the United States against the threat of “radical Islam.”
Her speech at the Values Voter Summit represented a passionate return to that cause; this time she took matters a step further by alleging that the Obama administration was embracing "enforced Islamic speech codes" to protect the sensitivities of Muslims at the expense of American security.
“We are quickly losing our sense of who we are as a nation, and we are losing our ability to identify our radical Islamist enemy,” Bachmann said, adding later, “Barack Obama has been the most dangerous president we have ever had on foreign policy."
--Elise Foley contributed reporting.
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