He talked to BuzzFeed about what President Obama needs to do and what he took out of his hit convention speech. Also: The time he almost became a Mormon.

Image by Wilfredo Lee / AP

MIAMI — President Obama’s central challenge is convincing voters that no other leader could have done better in stabilizing the American economy than he did, President Bill Clinton said in an impromptu interview here late Wednesday evening.

“People have to know it couldn't be fixed,” he said of the economy.

Clinton, who spoke to reporters from BuzzFeed and two other outlets in a wide-ranging conversation late Tuesday at the Biltmore Hotel, was bullish on Obama’s chances.

“He’s doing great,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s speech in Charlotte last Wednesday was widely viewed as the highlight of the Democratic National Convention and a key source of Obama’s post-convention momentum. Clinton revealed Tuesday that Obama had asked him to make two modifications to the speech — one on Medicare and one on welfare — but wouldn’t specify what they were. He said he didn’t give Obama the full text until the morning of the speech, but that he worked closely with White House officials, including National Economic Council director Gene Sperling, on his remarks.

And while Clinton visibly basked on the campaign trail before a crowd of 2,300 at Florida International University Tuesday in his place back in the center of a presidential campaign, he volunteered that he doesn’t call up Obama to offer him advice.

“He knows where to find me,” the forty-second president said. He also dismissed media speculation on tension between the two men as overblown.

Clinton also offered unusually warm words for his immediate successor, President George W. Bush, for devoting his all to stave off a depression in his final three months, “just like President Obama did in his first three months.” He noted that he was the only person at either convention to speak nicely of Bush the younger — and revealed he’s planning to catch up with President George H.W. Bush next week.

Clinton also engaged in a long discussion about congressional dysfunction, blaming lawmakers’ physical exhaustion in part for the partisan tone.

He recalled calling Sen. Trent Lott after the former Senate Majority Leader referred to him as a “spoiled brat” on a Sunday show — not to yell at him, but to encourage him to get more sleep.

Clinton also discussed his golf game, which he says hasn’t been the same in years. His work in Haiti, on top of his other commitments, kept him off the links for months, and he says his rhythm post-heart surgery just hasn’t been the same.

But just the other day he shot an 87 at the Liberty National Golf Course overlooking the Statue of Liberty, he said, estimating that his handicap is about a +18.

Clinton recalled playing President Obama last year — a round credited with resolving their differences from the 2008 campaign — where the duffer-in-chief beat him “fair and square.” Clinton offered the excuse that he had just three hours of sleep and “could hardly walk.”

Clinton spoke to reporters at the hotel — a magnificent national landmark — which also hosts a world class golf course Clinton estimated he’d played a hundred times.

Clinton also recalled a moment from his youth in Arkansas being approached by two or three Mormon missionaries in Hot Springs, where they explained the Mormon view.

Clinton spoke highly of their effort, recounting the different degrees of heaven as was explained to him 50 years ago, describing it as a pyramid with many levels that put Hitler and Stalin at the very bottom, faithful Mormons on top, and everyone else in between.

Clinton, a Baptist, said the sticking point for him was leaving his friends and family out of the top level of heaven.

“I didn’t want to leave all these other people behind,” he said.

The President strongly condemned the attack.

US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens gives a speech on August 26th. (Getty)

Source: cache.daylife.com

President Obama put out a statement today on the attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi yesterday that led to the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other American staff members.

I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.
I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.
On a personal note, Chris was a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States. Throughout the Libyan revolution, he selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi. As Ambassador in Tripoli, he has supported Libya's transition to democracy. His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice. I am profoundly grateful for his service to my Administration, and deeply saddened by this loss.
The brave Americans we lost represent the extraordinary service and sacrifices that our civilians make every day around the globe. As we stand united with their families, let us now redouble our own efforts to carry their work forward.

The Secretary of State's words received an enthusiastic thumbs up from John McCain.

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McCain's Tweet:

Repeats claim that the White House “sympathized” with the attackers. Eager to get back on offense after a week of bad news.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After somberly acknowledging the deaths of American Embassy workers in Libya, Mitt Romney launched into a full-throated offensive at a press conference Wednesday morning — reasserting his criticism that the Obama administration mishandled the developing regional crisis.

"I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with a those who had breached our Embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions," Romney said, echoing a provocative statement the campaign released late Tuesday night. "It's never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values."

Romney was referring to a statement issued by the Cairo Embassy prior to the attacks Tuesday, in which officials apologized for an anti-Islam film circulating online that hurt Muslims' "religious feelings." When protesters attacked the Embassy, Romney pointed out, diplomats continued to reassert the apology from the Embassy's official Twitter account. (Those same Tweets also condemned the attacks.)

Romney was unwilling to give President Obama, who officially disowned the Embassy's statements, the benefit of the doubt.

"The White House distanced itself last night form the statement, saying it wasn't cleared from Washington," Romney said. "That reflects the mixed signals they're sending to the world."

The efforts to paint Obama as weak and dithering on foreign policy are consistent with an ongoing theme in Romney's message. Before announcing his bid for president, he published a book titled, "No Apology," and regularly accuses the president of "apologizing for America" to the rest of the world.

But on a day when other high-profile Republicans are releasing nonpartisan statements offering condolences to the victims' families — and leaving Obama's name out of it — Romney could risk looking like he's politicizing the tragedy.

But Romney rejected the notion that he should be un-allowed to engage in a debate on the issue.

"We have a campaign for the presidency of the United States and are speaking about the different courses we would each take with regards to the challenges that the world face," Romney said.

He added, "We have many places of distinction and differences, we join together in our condemnation of the attacks on American Embassies and the loss of American life and join in the sympathy for these people."

The initial reaction to Romney's approach — from pundits, and some foreign policy experts on both sides of the aisle — was that the statement was too aggressive too soon. But conservatives on Twitter responded approvingly to the tone.

After a week of playing defense, the Romney campaign appears determined to get on offense — even if it has to suffer the wrath of the establishment.

“Bungle… utter disaster…not ready for prime time… not presidential… Lehman moment.” And that's just the Republicans.

Image by Jim Young / Reuters

Mitt Romney's sharply-worded attack on President Obama over a pair of deadly riots in Muslim countries last night has backfired badly among foreign policy hands of both parties, who cast it as hasty and off-key, released before the facts were clear at what has become a moment of tragedy.

Romney keyed his statement to the American Embassy in Cairo's condemnation of an anti-Muslim video that served as the trigger for the latest in a series of regional riots over obscure perceived slights to the faith. But his statement — initially embargoed to avoid release on September 11, then released yesterday evening anyway — came just before news that the American Ambassador to Libya had been killed and broke with a tradition of unity around national tragedies, and of avoiding hasty statements on foreign policy. It was the second time Romney has been burned by an early statement on a complex crisis: Romney denounced the Obama Administration's handling of a Chinese dissident's escape just as the Administration negotiated behind the scenes for his departure from the country.

"They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up," said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an "utter disaster" and a "Lehman moment" — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

He and other members of both parties cited the Romney campaign's recent dismissals of foreign policy's relevance. One adviser dismissed the subject to BuzzFeed as a "shiny object," while another told Politico that the subject was the "president's turf," drawing a rebuke from Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.

"I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy," said the Republican. "This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it."

Romney has not backed off the response — "It's never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values," he said Wednesday — but his campaign faces a near consensus in Republican foreign policy circles that, whatever the sentiment, Romney faltered badly.

"It’s deeply unfortunate when the circumstance of the statement becomes the story," said Rick Perry's former foreign policy adviser, Victoria Coates, who is now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and who suggested that Romney should simply have "gone earlier rather than save it for midnight" to avoid appearing to play politics on September 11. "It’s unfortunate that it’s playing out this way, and hopefully they can get back on message, because their point is sound," she said.

Other conservatives were less sympathetic.

"It's bad," said a former aide to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "Just on a factual level that the statement was not a response but preceding, or one could make the case precipitating. And just calling it a 'disgrace' doesn't really cut it. Not ready for prime time."

A third Republican, a former Bush State Department official, told BuzzFeed, "It wasn't presidential of Romney to go political immediately — a tragedy of this magnitude should be something the nation collectively grieves before politics enters the conversation."

But the third official defended the substance of Romney's words: "Romney's attack is spot-on — disgusting that the first Obama administration impulse was to apologize instead of condemning violent religious intolerance. Obama's gotten a real pass on his intervention in Libya, his failed strategy in Afghanistan, and his lack of leadership in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. By trying to cut it down the middle in his foreign policy, no one knows where or for what Obama or America stands in the world these days."

The Republicans declined to speak for attribution, for fear of being publicly disloyal to their party's nominee. Veteran Democratic foreign policy hands, operating under no such restriction, called Romney's quick move all but disqualifying.

"He did jump the gun. It revealed yet again that his foreign policy team is not ready for prime time," said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton State Department official. "It is ugly and amateurish. It also seems strangely out of character with Romney who elsewhere in the campaign seems inclined to be restrained to a fault."

Heather Hurlburt, who heads the National Security Network, a Democratic group, said the statement "shows not just poor judgment and a willingness to use tragedy for political gains, regardless of the security consequences — but also poor management. He has policy people on his team who know better. Clearly they weren't consulted."

"As someone who worked at state and with diplomats for many years, it makes me feel sick," she said.

"Romney blew it and revealed how seriously maladroit he is when it comes to foreign affairs and national security," said Steve Clemons, the founder of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "An attack on an Embassy, the murder of U.S. officials including an Ambassador, is an attack on all Americans and the idea of America — and Romney gave terrorists what they want — a divided country still torn emotionally and politically by the events of 9-11. Romney talks of leadership but with his reckless commentary when events were fragile and still unfolding, he belly-flopped."

“In times of great drama and heightened crisis … I always think discretion is the way to go.”

LINK: Foreign Policy Hands Voice Disbelief At Romney Cairo Statement

The images reveal the devastating nature of the attack on the US consulate on Tuesday.

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The president said he would work with the Libyan government in “bringing to justice the killers that attacked our people.”

Source: youtube.com

The Bush administration criticized the cartoons that mocked the prophet Muhammed, but made clear they stood up for freedom of the press at a State Department press briefing in February 2006. The Obama Administration is under fire for expressing (then retracting) a similar sentiment about a video.

Source: youtube.com

The crowd was quick to correct him.

Source: youtube.com

The clumsy dubbing suggests that the footage comes from different films entirely. And there's no way that it cost $5 million to make.

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The anti-Muslim "movie" that served as the spark or pretext for a wave of violent unrest in Egypt and Libya may not be a movie at all.

As the video above — cut from the YouTube video tied to a global controversy — shows, nearly all of the names in the movie's "trailer" are overdubbed. The video is a compilation of the most clumsily overdubbed moments from what is in reality an incoherent, haphazardly-edited set of scenes. Among the overdubbed words is "Mohammed," suggesting that the footage was taken from a film about something else entirely. The footage also suggests multiple video sources — there are obvious and jarring discrepancies among actors and locations.

However, CNN has reported that the cast and crew disavowed the movie, and the overdubbing could also have been to conceal the content from the cast itself. Gawker interviewed a woman who played a part in the movie, who said that she had had no idea what it was about when she was hired.

As The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported today, the supposed filmmaker, "Sam Bacile," appears not to be a real person — or at least not the director of the movie. A consultant to the movie, Steve Klein, told Goldberg that he didn't know Bacile's real name and that he wasn't Israeli as reported.

The person using Bacile's name told the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal that the film had been made using $5 million from those donors, as well as a sizable crew of 45 people behind the camera and nearly 60 actors. The film's low production values make those numbers risible. Five million dollars is more than the budget of some reputable independent films, and could certainly buy a better production than what went into the Mohammad film.

"We continue to report this story and gather new information to explain the origins of the movie and the individuals behind it," said AP spokesman Paul Colford. "More coverage to follow..."

The film's author is still still unknown, though Florida pastor Terry Jones and Egyptian-American Coptic activist Morris Sadek have been involved in promoting it. Four Americans were killed in Libya in riots tied to the film.

But whoever made may well have made use of little more than the standard editing software Final Cut Pro — far from a cast and crew of over 100 and millions of dollars.

Top general in the horrific Afghan hospital mess admits bragging about his relationship with Obama, but says the boast occurred months before the investigation began. Caldwell “very impressed” POTUS was “able to refer to me by my nickname.”

Source: turkey.usembassy.gov

WASHINGTON — Lt. General William Caldwell, the American military officer who oversaw the Afghan hospital plagued by grisly "Auschwitz-like" conditions, denied to Congressional investigators Wednesday that he delayed reporting the abuses due to "political" considerations in Washington.

Caldwell — the senior military official at the center of one of the war's most horrific abuse scandals — appeared before the House Oversight Committee for the first time on Wednesday, nearly two years after military whistleblowers reported on conditions at the U.S. supervised hospital.

Caldwell, who was the commander of the U.S. training mission at the time in 2010, denied covering up any abuses, and said he took "decisive, immediate action" once the problems were uncovered.

His testimony was at odds with information provided to the committee last month by three other U.S. military officials, including a chief surgeon and a longtime Judge Advocate General lawyer. The U.S. military officials accused Caldwell of covering up the hospital abuses in order to prevent a negative news cycle prior the 2010 midterm elections.

During a committee hearing in July, Col. Mark Fassl said that Caldwell did not want to investigate the abuses because he was concerned about how it might look for President Barack Obama before the American midterm elections. In a meeting on Oct. 28, 2010, Fassl testified, Caldwell was upset that plans had been made without his consent to request help from the Department of Defense. "His first response to me was, 'How could we do this or make this request with elections coming?'" Fassl said under oath. "And then he made, again, a shocking comment, 'He calls me “Bill.'" …I took it as, that he was referring to the president of the United States."

On Wednesday, Caldwell disputed Fassl’s account of events, and said he had made such a statement only once, after he briefed the president at the White House a couple of months before the Oct. 28 meeting.

"And when I was giving that portion of my briefing to the president, I did come back and tell my staff that I was actually very impressed by the fact that he was prepared well enough during the briefing, when I had my part come on, to be able to refer to me by my nickname, instead of by my formal title," Caldwell told the committee. "And, I mean, I think anybody who has the president of the United States call them by their first name probably remembers that."

"But it had absolutely nothing, nor did I ever refer to it during the time period of the request of developing or preparing for the Department of Defense IG to come in and help us during this time period," Caldwell added.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the committee, appeared briefly at the hearing to make one request.

"For the record, in your words, I would ask that you say it in your own words, it is inappropriate for anyone in the armed services or anyone in the State Department to ever do anything that affects or could affect U.S. elections as a consideration of their required duty," Issa said.

"You’re exactly correct," Caldwell responded. "It’s inappropriate for us, ever, to allow any kind of political influence whatsoever to ever enter into any kind of decision-making process or actions that we’re taking."

The Congressional Oversight Committee has been investigating why the abuses — which included patients starving to death and widespread graft — were not addressed sooner.

On Wednesday, Caldwell claimed he acted as soon as he saw photos of the conditions at the hospital, on Nov. 10, 2010.

That timeline has been the subject of some debate, and U.S. Army whistleblowers have claimed that Caldwell had been made aware of the conditions at the hospital months earlier.

"The second it was identified to us, we took decisive and immediate action," Caldwell told the committee, which was presided over by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican. Even before the photos came to light, however, concerns had been raised about corruption and patient neglect at the hospital.

Caldwell confirmed to the committee that he had delayed plans to request assistance from the Department of Defense by 12 days, from Oct. 29, 2010 until Nov. 10, 2010, because he first wanted to notify Gen. David Petraeus, who was at the time the head of military operations in Afghanistan.

The midterm elections were held on Nov. 2, 2010.

"It had everything to do with the necessary and critical coordination," Caldwell said. "It had nothing to do with the [U.S.] national elections."

"I needed Gen. Petraeus’s help," Caldwell elaborated later in the hearing. "He was the senior commander. I owed him to tell him what I was doing when I was doing it."

On Nov. 10, 2010, Caldwell requested that the Department of Defense send an inspector general to the hospital, where the U.S. had committed millions of dollars to train the staff, to address the abuses.

Dings his rival for attacking his administration's response to Libya consulate crisis. Now he's politicizing a tragedy, Republicans say.

Source: youtube.com

After a careful silence while his opponent faced allegations of politicizing national security, President Barack Obama took a his own swing at Mitt Romney on Wednesday

"There's a broader lesson to be learned here: Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later," Obama told CBS News of Romney's claim that Obama was not forceful enough in his response to yesterday's killing of four U.S. diplomats in Libya.

Romney's statement, released last night before many of the facts from the attack in Benghazi were gathered, has drawn bipartisan criticism as lawmakers call for unity to respond to what is now being investigated as a terrorist attack.

Since an initial early morning statement from the campaign, Obama's political operation had taken care not to be seen as capitalizing on the events for political gain — but once Romney tried just that, Obama took the gloves off.

"As president, one of the things I've learned is you can't do that-it's important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts and that you've thought through the ramifications before you make them," Obama continued.

Obama's campaign spent much of the day silent on the issue, deferring to the White House to respond to a national security incident. Their silence had the added benefit of allowing Romney time to wallow in the mess of his own creation.

"Why do we have to say anything when members of his own party are attacking him for it," said one Obama staffer who was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

Obama's response is just the latest iteration of his campaign's attempts to use foreign policy to drive a character attack on Romney — that he's uneducated on the issues and makes rash decisions — that, if successful, would undercut Romney's case for economic competence.

Republicans, meanwhile, rolled their eyes at an attack timed to drive a bad story for Romney forward.

"Obama [is] so outraged by the way Romney politicized the situation that he's going to fire a political attack on him in time for the nightly news?" asked a GOP official.

Guy has got an outfit for everything.

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Mysteries swirl over an anti-Islamic movie.

The tight-knit world of American anti-Islam activists in the U.S. discounted the idea that a video depicting the prophet Muhammad in an absurd and negative light played a significant role in inciting violence in Egypt and Libya during conversations with BuzzFeed today.

"I don’t think the movie is what kicked it off," said David Reaboi, communications director for the Center for Security Policy run by Frank Gaffney. Reaboi said that his organization believes that the attacks were coordinated by Egypt's Al-Noor party in order to get a plank onto the Egyptian constitution about outlawing blasphemy.

The protests that led to the violence of Tuesday night were over the offensive anti-Muslim movie, but U.S. officials said today that the attacks on the embassies, which took four American lives including that of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, may have been organized beforehand by extremist groups in the region. The AP has reported that the video is linked to Coptic Christian activists in Los Angeles.

Reaboi said he hadn't fully seen the film, or the 14-minute trailer available online: "First couple minutes was all that I could take, at least from a production quality standpoint."

"There's no shortage of pretext for Islamic rage based on Sharia blasphemy laws," Reaboi said. "I don’t think the pretext is important as the doctrinal element when it comes to what makes these people become violent and crazy."

"The fact is it has nothing to do with this movie," said Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch and ally of Pamela Geller. "This is obviously orchestrated and they’re looking for someone to get mad at about it."

"They want us to think it’s our responsibility when they fly into murderous rages," Spencer said. Spencer said he didn't believe that outside events, like the film or like the Danish cartoons of a few years ago, "incite at all."

Daniel Pipes, the founder of the Middle East Forum, said that "The anger is there. But it’s more than anger. It is a deliberate effort since 1989 to tell us in the west that we have to play by the rules of Sharia."

Pipes distanced himself from the kind of rhetoric in the film, saying "People like me don’t touch that stuff. We have no interest in – we don’t say things like Muhammad is a pedophile. We don’t say things like Islam is a cancer. There’s a distinction between people who despise Islam, and people like me who despise Islamism."

The video in question has been linked to Florida pastor Terry Jones, who promoted it and who gained notoreity two years ago when he announced plans to burn copies of the Quran in his Gainesville church.

Jones' office would not put BuzzFeed on the phone with him or answer specific questions, but they sent a statement.

"The film is not intended to insult the Muslim community, but it is intended to reveal truths about Muhammad that are possibly not widely known," Jones says in the statement. "The recent outbreak of violence and deaths is not because of the film, it is not because of the activities that we have done and that we will continue to do. These types of violent activities must be totally rejected. These people must be held accountable. It again shows the true nature of Islam."

Says the comes down to convincing voters that no president could have done a better job than Obama — and dealing with high expectations set in 2008.

Image by Andrew Innerarity / Reuters

ORLANDO, Florida — Former President Bill Clinton continued on his crusade for President Barack Obama's reelection today in Orlando, criticizing the Republican party as uncompromising.

Noting that his Clinton Global Initiative brings leaders from all over the world and from all parties together to solve problems, Clinton said it's a different story with "the faction of the Republican party that now controls their nominating process and their political operations."

"Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower… Richard Nixon’s too liberal for these people. It’s amazing," he told a crowd of 2,000 in a packed hotel ballroom.

Clinton repeated his concern that the "whole election" comes down to dealing with the expectations of 2008 that Obama would turn the economy around, noting that Obama didn't cause the problem and hasn't shirked the responsibility either.

"I honestly believe, it doesn't matter who caused it or whether the contributing factors all happened under President Bush or something I did or something Ronald Reagan did 30 years ago," Clinton said. "Regardless, President Obama didn't cause it."

"But if [Obama] just kept telling us that and not done anything, we'd still have to replace him, because we hired him to take the job and you dont get to pick only the good and not the bad. So he took it on. Now what I want to say again and again and again, it is my opinion — as someone who beginning when I was a governor in 1979, has spent a lifetime tring to create jobs and help people start businesses and expand manufacturing and create opportunity for people and train and educate them to seize those opportunities. It is my opinion — no president, not Barack Obama, not Bill Clinton, not anybody who served before us, nobody whoever had this job could have repaired that much damage to this economy in just four years. that is not a thing. I believe that."

Jimmy Israel, who briefly worked on Desert Warriors , the crude film that would become Innocence of Muslims , speaks out: “I don't quite understand how this film could create this.”

The bizarre video that has been cited in deadly protests in Egypt and Libya has been disowned by its actors and linked to a mysterious figure — allegedly the manager of a film company — named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

An AP report suggests that Nakoula may be the "Sam Bacile" who posted the video on YouTube; my conversation a man who operates a real estate company under the name Jimmy Israel, and whose website was linked to the film's production, offers another link to Nakoula.

Israel, who said he worked previously in theater and film production, said he came to the project, which was at the time called Desert Warriors, through his friend, the original director, who he refused to name. "I was going to produce it for him," he said, "but the original producer came back."

Israel said he initially auditioned for a part in the movie, where he met a man who referred to himself as Sam Bacile or Bassiel. He was then asked to help with the production instead. He read the script, which he described as "awful — terribly bloody," but hoped he might be able to influence the film as the production progressed. At the time he was told by his friend — the director — and Bacile that the film was about the historical persecution of Coptic Christians. "That's what I understood it was about," said Israel, who noted that there were flashbacks to Muhammed "being a hypocrite," in the script, but nothing quite as inflammatory as what made it to YouTube. An actress involved in the production told Gawker that the script she worked from had very little to do with Islam or Muhammed. Indeed, the video on YouTube is crudely dubbed over at many points.

Israel's time on the production was early and short: "I worked for two days going over the script," says Israel, "finding the casting venue, and putting the ad in Backstage, and trying to find a SAG deal." (BuzzFeed located him because a casting call for the film features a jimmyisrael.com email address).

"Bacile," or someone, decided to turn down the deal due to budgetary reasons. Israel suggests that, despite earlier reports that the film had millions of dollars of outside financing, the total outlay for the project couldn't have exceeded $100,000. He evidently owes Israel and others money, though Israel didn't specify what for.

"I thought I had a chance of pushing with Sam to change the screenplay," says Israel, who left the project almost immediately. "I would not stay with the film if Sam would not agree to certain changes. I don't work on that kind of film, I'm glad I was replaced."

The result, he said, is a "terrible film that's very poorly made."

In Israel's telling, it was Sam Bacile — a man he met a number of times, and who insisted that was his real name — who turned the film into a piece of religious incitement. "Sam portrayed [Muhammed] as being a sex addict and killing people left and right and having henchmen kill people and so forth," he says, "I don't know about Muhammed at all." The reason for his initial participation was money: "It was really just for hire, I'm not a wealthy man."

In my discussion with Israel, which ended when his phone apparently died, he provided a bizarre sketch of Sam Bacile, who it seems very likely is, in fact, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. (While Israel said he had never met anyone by that name, the name Bacile gave to Israel for the SAG registration was Abnob Nakoula Basseley, and Israel describes him as about the same age as that given in the AP report.) At one point Bacile claimed to have cancer, which didn't turn out to be true. He allegedly went on trips to Egypt to "raise money" for the film. It's hard to rule anything out; I can't be sure, for example, that his friend he would not name, the original director, exists. Likewise, I can't be sure that this isn't part of some larger deception — anything from a prank to some kind of bizarre intelligence operation. It's phenomenally strange.

Israel insists that his anonymous friend, whose initial involvement with the film was overshadowed by Bacile, had no idea things would get out of hand. "Oh yeah, he's got a lot of regrets," Israel said. "He did it primarily for the money," he claimed, though when asked how he thought a film like this could possibly be commercially viable, Israel conceded: "It's very hard to imagine that any distribution compmnay would distribute this."

Israel, who identifies as a "pacifist" liberal with no affiliation to organized religions, and who claims to have no strong opinions about Islam, despite having heard some "alarming" things about the Quran at "seminars," says he supports freedom of religion and expression. "You don't want to go too far," he told me, "and maybe this did."

"Certainly it is very insulting to a muslim to see their Jesus or their Moses being portrayed as a horrible person," he said. "My influence was nil. The effects of the film are because of the way Sam made the film."

The president added that that current Egyptian government is not an enemy but the United States will have to “wait and see” how they respond to the attacks on the U.S. embassy.

Source: msnbc.msn.com

The Obama campaign hit Mitt Romney for using the “tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya” to “launch a political attack.” On a July 2008 appearance on CNN, then-Senator used the death of U.S. troops in Afghanistan as talking point to ding John McCain and President Bush for their support of the Iraq War.

Source: youtube.com

An early version of the article had a campaign adviser saying the candidate had mishandled the crisis. What happened to it?

DULLES, Va. — Early Wednesday evening, the New York Times published an article online titled, "Behind Romney’s Decision to Attack Obama on Libya,” that included an exceptionally juicy quote about halfway down.

In that story — whose text was emailed to reporters by the liberal group Americans United for Change — there was a paragraph that read as follows:

And as an adviser to the campaign who worked in the George W. Bush administration said on Wednesday, Mr. Romney’s accusation that Mr. Obama had invited the attacks because he had weakened America looked like “he had forgotten the first rule in a crisis: don’t start talking before you understand what’s happening.”

Within hours, however, that story — initially bylined David Sanger and Ashley Parker — was replaced by a lengthier, more fleshed-out version of the story, now bylined by Peter Baker and Ashley Parker. (The initial item can be read here.) The new article included more context, a few fresh bits of reporting, and a structure that seemed more fitting for the print edition of the newspaper. It also carried a new headline: "A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned." (The URL for the story still included the original headline.)

But the new version of the story was missing the quote from the anonymous Romney adviser slamming his own candidate — perhaps the newsiest piece of information in the original item.

The current version of the story does include quotes from other Republicans questioning the timing of Romney's aggressive critiques of the Obama administration, but not from anyone officially aligned with the campaign.

A New York Times spokesperson did not respond to BuzzFeed's inquiry as to whether the paper still stands by the quote.