The image of a smirking Mitt Romney as he walked away from his press conference regarding the terrorist attacks in Libya is his John Kerry-windsurfing moment. Much as with the Kerry image, critics are making too much of a fleeting moment: Romney partisans are correct to point out that Romney's expression is only that – not a deep-seated reflection of an inner belief.

Kerry was (and is) a serious person who made thoughtful and deliberate decisions about policy. His hobbies didn't carry a hidden meaning. Romney is a serious person who, no doubt, feels the loss of a fellow American as deeply as any patriot.

I make jokes about his robotic affect (I had to resist making one just now) not because I genuinely believe he's uncaring, but because his stiffness so aptly reflects his cold-blooded professionalism and efficiency (he enjoys firing people! He put a dog on the roof of his car). As with so much in politics, there's the literal truth and what we feel to be true. When an image, or a phrase or a joke resonates with the public, it's usually because the difference between the two harmonizes rather than clashes.

That dissonance is why Clint Eastwood's characterization of Invisible Obama as vulgar and obnoxious felt not just baffling, but wrong. Obama, if anything, is too polite and restrained – to the point of paralysis. (See: Woodward, Bob).

John Kerry windsurfing in Nantucket, 2004. Photograph: AP

Kerry's phlegmatic, meandering navigation of his surfboard through the wind, on the other hand, hit the visual note corresponding to "he was for it before he was against it" just right. And Romney has this very day shown himself too willing to use international tragedy for personal gain – the expression captured by the camera may have been an accident of musculature but it doesn't feel that way.

It feels like the self-satisfied snicker of someone walking away from the negotiating table knowing (or thinking) he put one over on the other guy. One assumes Romney had a much less smug expression on his face as the timeline of today's events unfolded, and clarity about their causes and motivations emerged.

Romney's campaign, it turns out, was in the midst of cynically spinning a Tweet (a Tweet!) from the US embassy in Cairo into an "administration apology", even as Libyan terrorists used the protests as cover for a premeditated strike. The anti-Muslim film trailer that prompted the protests – and was the subject of the Cairo embassy's criticism – was convenient, not causal.

Given the GOP's kneejerk invocation of Obama's "apologetic" foreign policy, you'd think the Romney campaign would have been able to spot someone else opportunistically using a tangentially-related event for a premeditated attack.

Reporters soon uncovered a set of Romney talking points aimed at justifying its previous, premature talking points. "Did Governor Romney 'jump the gun' last night in releasing his statement?" went the not-very-hypothetical question. Suggested response? "No. It is never too soon to stand up for American values and interests." The speed of this rationalization does not make the initial attack seem any less premeditated, just not very well thought-out. The Romney campaign reacts rather than responds. This is not what one wants in a commander-in-chief.

We've gotten jaded about tragedy being co-opted for political purposes. The campaigns' advertising boycott on 9/11 is a subtle confirmation just how deeply ingrained the expectation is – the boycott itself proof that the subconscious tendency must be overtly checked. Pols and pundits on all sides often get away with capitalizing on pain because we all know they all do it.

There is an implicit wink behind the more outrageous attacks. Obama does not believe that Romney actively hates women. Romney does not doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii. If some voters on the fringe believe the worst? Hey, the Etch-a-Sketch will be shaken, and campaign slurs often fade in the amnesiac, slow-motion blur of actual governing.

But sometimes, the wink isn't just a wink. It's a tic, an unthinking habit that won't go away. The Romney reaction to the news out of Libya suggests something even more dangerous: a habit of unthinking. As Fred Exley put it, in his classic A Fan's Notes, bemoaning the latent cynicism that allows good people to excuse themselves for doing bad things: