Obama easily bests an indifferent Romney in foreign policy debate, if anyone was listening

A CBS poll of undecided voters showed Barack Obama winning the third presidential debate by a 2-1 margin over challenger Mitt Romney, while a CNN poll showed Obama “only” ahead by a 48-40 percent margin among “all” voters; I’m not sure what flavor of Kool Aid that 40 percent were drinking, but it was probably spiked with their favorite recreational drug. The fact is that the debate was hardly the "battle" the Seattle Times for one is calling it; while Obama demonstrated realpolitik that experience brings, Romney could do little but agree with Obama’s policies half the time, and the remainder of the time either complain about Obama pointing out his flip-flops and lack of coherent policy details, and at several points try to go off topic and shift to domestic policy, his alleged “strength." Unfortunately, I suspect that not many people who could have learned something from this debate were watching, since Monday Night Football and Game 7 of the NL Championship Series was on at the same time (I don’t know why anyone would partake in the alternatives—both games were snoozers).

I suppose we should all be glad to know that a presidential candidate like Romney can actually read newspapers and discover what is happening in the world today. The problems in places like the Middle East are however well-known, and not knowing about it is simply an indication of an ill-informed person, which Romney often seemed to be. He demonstrated little understanding of the complexities of Middle Eastern society; “Support our friends”? Well, I hope that is part of U.S. policy, but it is not always clear who our friends are in the Middle East, and the best that we can hope to do is to support a process that allows the people to at least believe that they are in control of the destiny—such as in Libya—and not bet on the wrong horse and make even more enemies, as this country has often done in the past. 

Instead of policy ideas, Romney seemed to rely on “tough” talk—tough on Iran, tough on China—but he never said exactly what he would do besides talk tough. When Obama went through his current policies and how he arrived at them, Romney could only respond by agreeing with Obama in principle. He seemed to be saying two different things about China, first saying the U.S. had to be “tough” on China playing by the rules, and then turning around to say that he knows China has its own interests to tend to, and the U.S. needs to respect that. Again he had no response to Obama’s statement that his administration had filed twice as many unfair trade actions against China than the previous administration; one gets the impression that Romney is only talking “tough” about China to cover-up his dealings with that country and the record of Bain in closing plants in the U.S. and shipping their jobs to China. In regard to Iran, no one knows how far the Iranians have advanced in developing their nuclear capability, but Obama again undercut Romney by pointing out that sanctions against Iran required a process of getting foreign powers to agree that there was no other alternative, and Iran is currently suffering significant economic disruption.  

Since Romney apparently believed all he needed to do was appear “tough,” which is all some Americans seem to require of their “commander-in-chief,” and since he has an "edge" on domestic policy (or believes he does), how he did in this debate was irrelevant. As I’ve indicated before, I think Romney has shown great contempt for the intelligence of voters generally in these debates, but in the third debate he demonstrated a new low. Romney's effort to veer off foreign policy and talk about his so-called “five-point” economic plan was an indication of his desperation; as expected, this “plan” was frightfully short on details, and even more contemptibly, it was just the usual propaganda lines that every candidate utilizes—only this time, Romney breaks it down into bite-sized morsels to make it seem “bigger” than it really is. 

Although I was disappointed that Obama again did not point out that Romney's record as governor in fact does not  indicate that he speaks from “strength,” let alone creditability (particular in regard to his so-called “bi-partisan” spirit, budget deficits and job creation “ability”), but he did again point out that Romney’s proposed tax plans combined with his $2 trillion increase in military spending was unrealistic and irresponsible; Romney apparently thought the military was playing a game of “Battleship,” when what it really wanted was a sound strategic vision for modern conflict, not necessarily a lot of ships it didn’t need. Moderator  Bob Schieffer interrupted Romney at one point and asked how he was going to pay for the military spending increase when the budget deficit was already high and in light of his tax cut proposals; Romney at first tried to evade the question, but then said that getting rid of “Obamacare” would be first on his list. Apparently “guns” are preferable to “butter.” Foreign policy is generally puts a premium on diplomacy, and it is also much less expensive. We could use that money to address more pressing domestic issues. As I’ve pointed out before, eliminating “Obamacare” ends the last best chance at health care reform  before the problem becomes so big it becomes impossible to do so. 

Also of interest was Romney's refusal to address the question of what he would do if he received a call from Israel stating that they were sending bombers to Iran. Romney refused to address a “hypothetical,” again demonstrating that he hadn’t given foreign affairs much thought; his acumen on the matter seems little advanced than Sarah Palin's, and obviously he didn't take John McCain's advice to get sensible on foreign policy to heart anymore than Palin did. It is almost as if Romney has been in a deep slumber when it comes to foreign policy, and has only reawakened in time to have some ill-conceived notions that only make sense if his last memories were from the Reagan years.

For those who haven’t been paying attention or see what they wish,  Obama’s foreign affairs resumé may at appear at first blush to be “unimpressive.” But that is more a function of the fact that he didn’t start a whole new war, telling falsehoods to the American people or the world in order retrieve the Bush family “honor” and invading Iraq—leaving Afghanistan to fester and boil on its own for years until it became just another “legacy” of the Bush administration for Obama to deal with. Even public enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden, was never located, let alone eliminated after seven years. Bin Laden was, however located and eliminated during the Obama administration. Any criticism over Obama’s handling of Libya seems like sour grapes, in that regime change was affected there without the cost of 4,000 American lives; but then again diplomacy and common sense doesn’t appear to be a strong suit of more recent brand of Republican.In the face of great domestic problems, Obama performance in foreign affairs was proper and without all the expensive meddling that does the country no good from within or without.