Posted on 10/20/2012 3:38:47 AM PDT by markomalley
Call it counter-intuitive, but Mitt Romney shouldn’t focus heavily on what many conservatives are calling President Barack Obama’s biggest foreign policy blunder during Monday night’s upcoming presidential debate, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks.
In his weekly appearance on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Brooks said the debate, which will be dedicated to the topic of foreign affairs, is an opportunity for Romney to talk about other issues than the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya.
“Don’t nitpick about Benghazi,” Brooks said. “Don’t have a little argument. Show some of your personality with some vision of America. Use foreign policy to expose your character, rather than getting lost in the weeds of some small foreign issue of the past. That would be my advice to both sides.”
Brooks said debates are more about personality than substance.
“People are not voting on your foreign policy,” he continued. “They’re voting on your personality, so you better expose that through a foreign policy vision.”
Brooks’ liberal counterpart, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, seemed to agree with Brooks. However, Dionne doubted Romney would resist going after the president on Libya.
“Obama already gave away in an Al Smith Dinner joke that he will mention the words ‘Osama bin Laden,’” Dionne said. “I think Romney will still not resist the chance to finally get his attack on Benghazi right. He’s had two goes at it, and it didn’t work. But I agree with David. I think, for most voters, it’s where are you going to go generally and who are you, because voters don’t expect lots of specificity on events they don’t know about in the future.”
bwaaaaaaahaaaaahaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Yeah, sure Brooks....
Yep, Brooks, got his marching orders..
That should read “Brooks got his marching orders..”
Comma abuse affects us all..
Translation:
Don’t embarrass my pants-crease love object by confronting him with one of his titanic failures.
Is he calling the murder of four Americans in Benghazi a "small foreign issue of the past"? After only 30 days, and already it's time to move on? For how long did we have to listen to these pricks obsess about Abu Grab?
I’m sure Brooks wants us all to forget about the two worst sins of Barack Obama, bengazi and fast and furious
Gotta love the media. Evidently, in their minds, bringing up an imaginary bullying incident from Romney’s High School years is acceptable and should be touted for days on end (until it was completely debunked and they could no longer pound on it.) However, according to them, the recent death of four Americans in Libya - which could have been avoided if our current administration had even the slightest interest in the safety of Americans as opposed to rubbing elbows with celebrities - is trivial and just “not optimal” enough to even be considered a debate issue.
The fact that Obama and his administration spent days lying about how it occurred - clearly in an attempt to prove that Obama’s much touted adeptness at foreign policy, is as big a scandal as the event itself. Obama’s first reaction at the death of these Americans was to try and make certain that HE wouldn’t suffer any fallout from it - true to form, his first thought was how it would impact HIM!
I can’t see how anybody could claim that Obama was adept at foreign policy. One of the few reservations that the Dems actually had about him at the beginning was that he had no foreign experience. He had to claim that his childhood and teenage trips Kenya and Indonesia counted as foreign policy experience.
Too bad you are not able to bring anything with you out onto the stage,Romney could bring a Copy of ONE of the Hundreds of released communications from Ambassador Stevens sent to the State Dept. weeks before he was murdered,which Stevens writes that the talk about demonstrations at Embassies are not Spontaneous,But Targeted ,Coordinated attacks.
That arrogant,Pompous Lying Traitor who wagged his Finger while Spewing his Phony Sanctimonious ,I am Offended that you would even suggest that his Administration would Mislead the American people,needs to Have the truth shoved up his Pompous Ass
I once attended a small church where one elder was an excellent weather vane on what to do in any given situation. The wisdom was in doing the exact opposite of whatever he said to do. David Brooks is such a weather vane for the Republican Party.
Brooks probably still worships Mr. Crease In His Pants and wants him to win a second term. The only wisdom in listening/reading anything from David Brooks is to learn what not to do.
What did we learn from Ben Ghazi about the press and Barack Obama?
We learned that the press will support and defend Barack Ubama at all costs, damned the facts!
We learned that Barack Ubama's leadership skills are lacking. While a consulate was under attack Barry prioritized his "Commander-in-chief" duties secondary to his campaign to win an election by heading off to Las Vegas.
The Middle East is being turned over to radical Islam due to Barack Ubama's "foreign policy." It all started in Cairo years ago during his apology tour.
Americans do not expect their President to BOW to anyone! Barack Ubama's kissing the feet and bowing to the Saudi king Abdullah was despicable! Barack Ubama bowing to the Japanese Emperor Akihito was disgusting! Barack Ubama doesn't get it! Running around the world apologizing is not leadership it is weakness.
LLS
david brooks is demon number 23,719.
LLS
WIKI Brooks has long been a supporter of John McCain; calling Sara Pali9n a "cancer" that she was a "joke," unlikely to ever win the Republican nomination....and that he was not a fan of her values.
March 2007 NYT: Brooks wrote that the Republican Party must distance itself from the minimal-government conservative principles of Ronald Reagan .... Brooks considers the most important purpose of a political party designed to serve the political class.
Brooks has been a frequent admirer of President Barack Obama. In an August 2009 profile of Brooks, The New Republic describes his first encounter with Obama, in the spring of 2005: "Usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don’t know political philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than me. [...] I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”
Two days after Obama’s second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, hit bookstores, Brooks published a column in The New York Times, titled "Run, Barack, Run", urging the Chicago politician to run for president.
In writing for The New York Times in January 2010, Brooks described Israel as "an astonishing success story." "Jews are a famously accomplished group," who, because they were "forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages... have been living off their wits ever since". In Brooks' view, "Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream. The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron. It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world."
Brooks broke with many in the conservative movement when, in late 2003, he came out in favor of same-sex marriage. He equated the idea with traditional conservative values: "We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.... It's going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage."
Brooks advocates for pro-choice government regs: abortion should be legal, with parental consent for minors, during the first four or five months, and illegal afterward, except in extremely rare circumstances. (New York Times, April 22, 2002.)
What BS. Benghazi is Obama’s non-healing, festering ulcer. Pick at it.
And nobama's horrible, unforgivable screw-up on Lybia doesn't define who he is? Give me a frigging break!
IMHO, everything about nobama, his morals, his mores, his character, everything, was exposed and defined in this one event. I sincerely hope Romney makes hay with this Monday night.
The personal representative of the President of the United States is viciously attacked and murdered. That is not a small foreign policy incident.
Brooks is calling 4 DEAD AMERICANS as a SMLL FOREIGN ISSUE OF THE PAST???? And that is just how DEMS see this....AMb. are DISPOSABLE.....anyone else who is in their march to victory is DISPOSABLE!!! I hate these people.
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