This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 21st, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President and Secretary of State have issued a non-apology apology via Pakistani television over a film claimed to be impetus for widespread

violent protests in several countries.

But in pinning the problem on a film and not ongoing deep military intervention in the region, the United States

is playing into a delusion.

Malu innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute comments. Since our founding, the United States

States has been a nation that respects all faiths.

We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.

Let me state very clearly and I hope it is obvious that the United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message.

America's commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.

What struck me about this ad was the lack of emphasis on other core fundamental values that are important to the United States.

The primary being the freedom of speech, not necessarily religious freedom or tolerance or tolerance

for religious freedom or however various permutations you can you can say that

There was not an emphasis that should have been stressed on an individual's right to express their ideas and beliefs at will.

Certainly President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

want to stop the protests, some of which have turned violent,

and also to sort of separate the misconception that private and

public speech in America are one and the same. That said I think President

Obama could have used this opportunity with the flare-ups across the Middle East

and most recently in Pakistan to really emphasize the fact that Americans live under a different set of

laws, different set of customs, and that these are fundamental values that we hold incredibly

...