Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), a top campaign surrogate, continued to muddle the facts in an appearance on “CBS This Morning” while defending Romney’s original statement, claiming that Romney’s remarks had been a response only to the statement issued by the U.S. embassy in Cairo and mixing up the actual timeline of events that occurred.

The first statement that came out, and it said, at its start, ‘we apologize.’

One of the problems with launching idiotic attacks like Mitt's smirking disaster is that you force your most loyal supporters into defending the indefensible. For example: Here's a sample of what Portman said:Not true. No statement, ever, included the words "we apologize." The embassy's statement said of America that "we reject" bigotry against believers. Not "we apologize." And it also called free speech a "universal right."

But Portman continued:



I think most Americans, Charlie, would look at that and say, ‘gosh, that’s not the appropriate response when your embassy is assaulted, when the American flag taken down and two Islamic flags put up over American territory and lives were in jeopardy.

So [Romney's] statement was very clear. It just said, the American government ought not to be issuing an apology. We ought to be condemning these attacks.

I was not aware it was issued before there were any attacks. I still think, Norah, you know, it implies that somehow the attacks could be justified by, again, a video.

And that didn't happen either—the statement was released before the attacks. But that didn't stop Portman from defending Romney:Fine, but not only did we not apologize ... we condemned the attacks. After they happened. So Portman wasn't really defending Romney so much as he was parroting a fantasy—a fantasy that never happened. And what did he say when he was confronted with this fact?Bullshit. But it is revealing that when confronted with the fact that Portman had no idea what he was talking about, he conceded that he was wrong on the facts but stuck to his conclusion. In other words, Rob Portman gave us a perfect example of Mitt Romney's campaign in action.