President Obama at the U.N.

The anti-American violence in the Muslim world demanded a firm push back from President Obama, who finally delivered it on Tuesday in the last United Nations General Assembly speech of his term. Since the protests, attacks and flag burnings erupted two weeks ago over an anti-Islam video made in California, administration officials have condemned its crude depiction of the Prophet Muhammad and explained that the government had nothing to do with it. Mr. Obama made a similar point at the United Nations. But he also gave a full-throated defense of the First Amendment right that, in this country, protects even hateful writings, films and speech. “We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities,” Mr. Obama said. He added that “the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech — the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.” Mr. Obama was right to deliver that message, however foreign it is in much of the Muslim world. The assembled leaders applauded when Mr. Obama said he accepts that, as president, people will call him “awful things every day” and that he will defend their right to do it. But a number of Islamic leaders have recently revived a push for an international ban on blasphemy, which would move in exactly the wrong direction. Mr. Obama’s more pragmatic challenges to Arab Spring countries trying to build new democratic societies may have more impact. He said all leaders must speak against violence and extremism out of obligation to United Nations norms as well as self-interest. “Burning an American flag does nothing to provide a child an education,” he said, and popular outrage can be turned as easily against Muslim leaders, ethnic groups and tribes as America. Mr. Obama also bluntly warned that the politics of anger could damage international cooperation. The United States intends to stay engaged with the struggling Muslim democracies, even after the killing of the ambassador to Libya and three other Americans on Sept. 11. But efforts to deepen trade, economic and other ties “depend on a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect,” he said. Six weeks before the election, the speech to an audience of world leaders in the United Nations General Assembly hall was as much a domestic political appeal as anything else. President Obama used the commanding venue of the General Assembly to offer a reasonable defense against Mitt Romney’s incoherent critique of his response to the revolutions in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen and to Iran’s nuclear program. There were two fairly big omissions in Mr. Obama’s visit to the General Assembly. He spoke only briefly on areas that need more debate in this campaign — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, Afghanistan and Iraq. And while it’s reasonable for Mr. Obama to be in campaign mode, just like Mr. Romney, he is the president. He could have used some of his time in New York to meet privately with world leaders, as presidents usually do. It’s not like he doesn’t have a lot to talk to them about.