Obama’s Timidity In The Face Of Extremism

In the days before yesterday’s protests in Pakistan over an anti-Muslim “film” made by an obscure person in California and, to date, only seen by the public in the form of a fourteen minute trailer on YouTube, the Obama Administration purchased some airtime on Pakistani television:

The Obama administration is airing ads on Pakistani television condemning the anti-Islamic film “The Innocence of Muslims,” a State Department spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.
“As you know, after the video came out, there was concern in lots of bodies politic, including Pakistan, as to whether this represented the views of the U.S. Government.  So in order to ensure we reached the largest number of Pakistanis – some 90 million, as I understand it in this case with these spots – it was the judgment that this was the best way to do it,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
The ads show clips of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning the film in English (but dubbed in Urdu) in remarks they made last week, emphasizing that it was not produced or authorized by the United States government.
“In the case of Pakistan, it is common and traditional to have to buy airtime on Pakistani TV for public service announcements.  So in that environment, it was their recommendation that we buy some airtime to make sure that the Pakistani people would heard the President’s messages and the Secretary’s messages, so we did purchase some time, is my understanding, on Pakistani TV stations, all of the stations,” Nuland said.
She pointed to other instances of the U.S. government airing ads in foreign markets — including after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.

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