Romney wasted his first response, as usual, he gives 1.5 minutes to general blahblah, mostly regarding Obama’s blahblah. Leaves himself only the end of his time for a few jabs. With 2.0 minutes aimed directly at Obama’s incompetence and being AWOL during the consulate attack, he could have left Obama stammering and twitching. Force Obama to answer hard questions: why no rescue etc. Were you following the live feed, or getting phonecall updates while on your regular routine?
Instead, Romney punted, and followed Obama lead to take the discussion general.Obama was dancing lead partnter most of the night, forcing Romney to follow.
I was not impressed. Romney was a great businessman I’m sure, but last night was where the typical “lawyer politician” would have been better. Any former prosecutor, say, Rudy Giuliani, would have torn Obama to shreds.
I think that there’s a significant reason that Romney didn’t go after the Libya situation. He knows something we don’t know. Either that the subject presented a debate trap, he’s saving that issue for future use (as in prosecution of involved parties), or there’s some important intelligence surrounding the issue that he didn’t want to divulge. He avoided the issue all night.
I don’t think Romney could have asked specific questions, because the Security briefing may have contained material that couldn’t be addressed by his inside knowledge, for one reason or another. We are going to be the ones doing the media’s job for this. Schieffer should have followed up with Obama if he felt his “Questions remain”
Schieffer’s questions=>(What happened? What caused it? Was it spontaneous? Was it an intelligence failure? Was it a policy failure? Was there an attempt to mislead people about what really happened?)
Sorry but I think you would be delusional if you think 0 would answer any question Romney would have asked. I think Romney played it smart, punt and hit a touchdown on other plays.
Romney waded through the minefield without stting one off - he knew a lot more than we about what would possibly fly and what would blow up in his face. Zero seemed to get more frustrated throughout even though by all accounts it didn’t seem like he was in real trouble - I’d hazard that it’s precisely because Mitt didn’t step on any of the preset mines and the preset talking points wouldn’t work without the proper trigger.
Listen to yourself. Those are questions for a press conference that an honest press corps would have already asked the Bobo. It's not Romney's place, nor should it be, to have to elucidate answers that the MSM deliberately did not pursue, in order to protect their Bobo. That's not the purpose of a debate. It was a trap, and Romney deftly walked around it.