The Apology Tour

In the October 22, 2012 debate moderator Bob Schieffer asked – what deal would you accept with Iran? The President said – our goal with Iran is for it to give up its nuclear program, they have an opportunity to rejoin the League of Nations and we would welcome that and we hope their leadership takes the right decision; the deal we’ll accept is straight forward - they end their nuclear program; the work involved in setting up the crippling sanctions is pain staking, it’s meticulous, we started day one and had to make sure that all countries participated even Russia and China; Iran has to abide by the rules that have already been established, convince the international community that they’re not pursuing a nuclear program, there are inspections that are very intrusive but over time they can regain their credibility but we’re not going to let up until we have clear evidence; we’re not going to allow Iran to perpetually engage in negotiations that go nowhere; we know when it’s too late to stop them so we’re going to make sure that we take all options to make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon. Romney said – from the beginning Iran has felt that this administration has not been as strong as it needed to be; the President said that in his first year he would sit down with all the worst actors – Chavez, Kim Jong-il, Castro, Ahmadinejad – then the President went on what he called ‘the apology tour’ where he criticized America and I think they saw weakness; I think they noticed the silence with the President during the Green Revolution and the space created between Israel and the US; now there are 10,000 centrifuges spinning uranium; it’s important that a President show strength from the beginning and an Iranian nuclear program is not acceptable to us; he repeated his plan for dealing with Iran and said if we do that we won’t have to take military action. Obama said – what Romney has said is not true and the apologizing claim "has been probably the biggest whopper that's been told during the course of this campaign"; while we were busy placing sanctions Romney was invested in a Chinese company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector; as far as the Iranian revolution he said he made in clear that the murderous acts were contrary to internal law and what civilized people stand for; the strength we’ve shown is in mobilizing the world – when he came in to office the world was divided; Iran is at its weakest and we will continue to make sure they don’t get a nuclear weapon.

CNN October 23 fact check of the President’s 2009 trips showed Romney's claim is false; the president mentioned past US mistakes and flaws during speeches but the snippets were part of larger and grander narratives about repairing ties, building friendship and working together-he never apologized. In December 2011, Michael Cohen, a columnist for Foreign Policy's Election 2012 Channel, called the ‘apology tour’ claim "a lie that has been reiterated so often that it has become conventional wisdom on the right. The apology canard has been disproven practically as often as it has been made."