Prime Minister Harold MacMillan was asked by a reported what would drive a government off-course, and he replied: “Events, dear boy, events”.

Yesterday’s jihadist attacks on the US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi – which were obviously as coordinated as the Danish cartoons offensive of a few years ago – point to the possibility that events will remind American voters of Obama’s pusillanimity in the face of islamic jihad. Mr. Romney, time to attack.

One slogan scrawled on the walls of the US embassy, which is near Tahrir Square where Egyptians revolted against Mubarak, said: “If your freedom of speech has no limits, may you accept our freedom of action.”

No, we do not.