While the Middle East erupted in protests akin to yesterday’s riots, presenting an opportunity to discuss our presidential candidates’ foreign-policy approaches to the so-called Arab Spring, the mainstream media continued to demonstrate an almost amazingly single-minded focus on the exaggerated faux-shortcomings of Mitt Romney’s communications team. The mind reels (full transcript here — it’s good):

Romney campaign senior foreign policy adviser Richard Williamson: “That’s a silly question, almost anything might wait… I came here to talk about the failed policies in the Middle East, which is what the American people are interested [in]. The failed policies of leading from behind. What you want to do is play a process ‘getcha’ question. I don’t want to play your game… Governor Romney’s statement was fine, it was acceptable, it was right. …We look forward to talking about this substance when you’re available.”

Before this segment of the interview, the CNN anchor went on and on and on about whether the timing of Romney’s statement was inappropriate. No. A thousand times, no. My Townhall buddy Guy Benson already said it perfectly:

Mitt Romney filled the void on behalf of the First Amendment, refused to shy away from American first principles, and excoriated the embassy’s posture (the White House eventually did the same). … Nevertheless, the insta-narrative is that Romney “jumped the gun” by “politicizing” the tragedy in Libya.  He did nothing of the sort. … The media is blaming Romney for capitalizing politically on deaths that he *did not know about* when he released a (generally strong) repudiation of our Cairo embassy’s reactions to a *different event.*  They’d criticize him for any action he took here, unless it involved essentially applauding and agreeing with everything the Obama administration has done, then sitting quietly in a corner.