Despite denying it beforehand, Rasmussen issued a – somewhat hidden – apology to ‘the Muslim world.’

Last weekend, several outlets, including PoliGazette, reported that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Minister had agreed to apologize to “the Islamic world” for the infamous Mohammed cartoons in order to convince Turkey to accept his nomination for NATO secretary general. Earlier today, we reported that Rasmussen himself contradicted these reports saying he could not and would apologize for anything printed by a newspaper.

Rasmussen gave his 2009-take on the cartoons earlier today. “I respect Islam as one of the world’s major religions as well as its religious symbols,” Rasmussen said during a panel discussion at a conference in Istanbul.

“I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectively towards Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing could be further from my mind,” he added.

I’ll let you decide whether you consider this an apology or not.

My take: this is as close as one can come to apologizing save for downright begging for forgiveness. It’s what you could call a “political apology.”

Rasmussen should have stuck to his guns. He has nothing to apologize nor to ‘sympathize’ for. The cartoons were printed by a newspaper, not by his government. It is sad that many felt insulted by them, but it is even sadder that mobs in Indonesia and Arab countries took the streets, boycotted Danish products, and attacked its embassies.

It was not an open, outright apology, but it is hard if not impossible to interpret it differently than a political one.

UPDATE Hot Air summarizes the ‘political apology’ quite perfectly as follows: “Danish PM’s ‘apology’: sorry if you took those cartoons the wrong way.” I’d only add “because we meant no harm” to that.

Again, feel free to disagree with me on whether or not Rasmussen’s statements constitute an apology or not. I’ve got my interpretation of it, but others can disagree.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking in. Be sure to read her post on Rasmussen’s political apology, and Obama’s speech before the Turkish Parliament. Her succinctly expressed opinion: “He didn’t say the exact words “I’m sorry,” but he might as well have tattooed it on his forehead.”

One of those disagreeing with me is perhaps the best conservative member of the blogosphere, Ed Morrissey. Ed argues that Rasmussen did not apologize as much as he made a truly diplomatic gesture of goodwill, which was of vital importance considering Turkey’s importance for NATO and tensions in the country itself.

I’m inclined to give Rasmussen a pass on this. It looks like he found the bare minimum that would satisfy the Turks and keep the government from having to deal with its radical Islamist faction and gave it to them.

It’s well a argued post, as we are used of Ed, but I disagree nonetheless:  the cartoons controversy is completely irrelvant for the job Rasmussen just accepted. NATO is not an organization dedicated to political correctness. It is a military alliance.

Furthermore, if he was truly “distressed” by the cartoons, Rasmussen could have said so immediately after the controversy was artificially created by fundamentalists. Instead, he chose to stand up for himself, his country, and the freedom of speech and of the press – which was obviously the right thing to do. Fundamentalists on the other hand, organized riots, attacked Danish embassies and boycotted the country’s products.

Not Rasmussen but these countries and peoples should express “distress” at what happened. Good post, but we continue to disagree.

Ed updated his post quoting me from an email I sent him pointing out that if Rasmussen was upset he could have apologized when the riots started. He acted tough instead. Why, oh why the obvious change? It makes me wonder whether Rasmussen refused to give in years ago out of principles or (solely) for domestic reasons?