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.”
I think he is right to an extent. Benghazi will be discussed, and Mitt Romney needs to know this issue better than anyone in the entire world, and he need to expose obama for the liar and traitor he is.
At the same time, he needs to give America the option for a better vision on this subject. Focusing to heavily on Benghazi may not let him do this.
I’m afraid that any Romney points scored on Benghazi will be offset by Obama’s portrayal of Romney as eager to get us into more war in the middle east. He knows people are war weary and he will push that button repeatedly. Mark my words.
Nitpick small matters? A government lying to its people is not a small matter. Just remember, no one died in the Watergate scandal but Nixon was tarnished forever as being a crook.
With Fast & Furious and Benghazigate alone (not even considering all of the corruption tied to the stimulus funds) it is very apparent we have an outlaw regime in charge.
Nice take.
I do think Obama is losing b/c the America he keeps describing to underpaid/unemployed/struggling voters——the one he says he put in place-—is NOT the America they see and the America they are experiencing.
The dangerous and reckless planning exposed by this debacle as well as Fast&Furious warrant an indictment on the regime's capacity to take care of business and keep the nation safe-- and that should be the direction to attack.
I believe Romney needs to know Benghazi better than anyone on the planet, even obama (should be easy). However, his tactic should be to avoid the subject, simply because obama is expecting it and prepared only to discuss it.
It will be like the pincer movement that was used in the Gulf War. Saddam Hussien was expecting a frontal attack. One did come with devastating results only after the pincer was already enacted. He needs to catch obama flat footed and the moderator for that matter, underprepared to counter his talking points. Make obama sound unprepared to lead for the next 4 years (like we already know).
How do satirists manage to stay one step ahead of reality?
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