Today on Tablet

An interesting, even useful discussion, but founded on a
good deal of speculation —weak connectors and inferences that become
exaggerated as they go on:

“it seems Obama has
taken a page out of Edward Said’s Orientalism.”

“Obama . . . must
have been aware of the internationally famous Palestinian-American
professor”

“Accordingly, for the Obama Administration, it is almost inconceivable [i.e., given
that Said’s Orientalism must have influenced administration interpretation of
events] that last week’s demonstrations could have been about anything
other than something that we Americans did.”

“The Obama Administration failed them as well as Americans
when they missed an opportunity to make a robust defense of America’s
universal values. Instead, it was trying to placate a bloodthirsty mob by observing the intellectual strictures of
an English professor.” [Here, not “must have” but “did.”]

Also, one word very tip-toed:

“Two months from the presidential election, the White House
seems to be telling the electorate that one person’s unpleasant [scurrilous? hateful? the equivalent term for “anti-Semitic”
if it had been a representation of Moses?] representation of Islam and its
prophet is more significant than mobs rioting and burning American flags in
more than 20 countries.”