Romney's not allowed to have that view?
Of course he's allowed to have it. It just strikes me as utterly bizarre. First the GOP insists that the Arab Spring is a vindication of Bush's "freedom agenda" (as put forth in his second inaugural address), but now that Arab Spring has toppled some dictators and we have democratic elections, the fact that some of those elections have brought Islamists to power means that the Arab Spring was actually bad, and if only Obama had asked Mubarak for democratic elections nicely, he would have said yes....and the people wouldn't have elected Islamists? Explain to me how that would have happened.
What seems to have happened here is that Romney was trying to appeal to his audience in this interview (Israelis and Americans who are nervous about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt), but couldn't find the right way to thread the needle so that he could agree with them without making it sound like democracy in the Arab world is bad.
No that's not it. It's good to have free elections. It's bad to elect Islamists. Just because someone is elected to office doesn't mean that the people made the right choice. It just means they won "fair and square." Freedom in the Arab world is good as long as it stays as "freedom." The way I view it is as a work in progress. I don't think Romney would be wrong to call it that either. He's free to take my words too. In politics the bad guys can win.
The elections are free; the elections are fair. The people of Tunisia and Egypt have chosen Islam (I detest the words Islamism and Islamist) and you have no right to interfere with the democratic process.
