Can Mitt Romney damage Obama over Benghazi attack?

Attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, provided an opening to question Obama's handling of an international crisis – and Mitt Romney and the GOP are making the most of it. But they'll need to avoid bellicose statements that may alienate independent voters, one expert cautions.

|
Evan Vucci/AP
In this photo taken Sept. 27, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Springfield, Va. Republicans lashed out at President Obama and senior administration officials over their evolving description of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Libya, a late campaign-season broadside challenging the veracity and leadership of an incumbent on the upswing.

Suddenly, Mitt Romney and the Republicans are attacking President Obama on an election issue on which the incumbent looked to be almost untouchable – foreign policy. Can it work?

The events of Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya – the firebombing of the US consulate that resulted in the deaths of four American diplomats including the ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens – have provided an opening to question Mr. Obama’s handling of an international crisis, and in particular, of American security overseas, foreign policy experts say.

Yet Republicans face their own pitfalls in zeroing in on the previously barren soil of foreign policy.

One is that many independent voters, in particular, have an aversion to the kind of muscular rhetoric about how the US should act in the world that Mr. Romney and a number of his surrogates have used in their broadsides at Obama, says Aaron David Miller, a foreign policy specialist with long experience in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“There are vulnerabilities [for Obama], for sure, that flow from the latest series of events. The questions that are resonating are about competency and whether there was too much nonchalance … about the security of our diplomats and our diplomatic missions,” says Mr. Miller, now a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Calling this new vulnerability on foreign policy “a clear shift in focus” on an issue where Obama seemed previously almost unassailable, Miller says, “Does it limit the president? Yes. But can it cost him the election? No.”

Until the Benghazi attack, Obama was considered to have greatly improved Democrats' standing with the public on issues of national security. He pledged to get Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and he did, he ordered many more drone attacks on militants in Pakistan than President George W. Bush did, and perhaps most important, a number of potentially devastating attacks on the US were foiled.

When asked at a press conference last December about Republican attacks on his firmness with America’s adversaries, Obama answered, “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top Al Qaeda leaders who’ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement.”

But Benghazi casts doubts on the president’s preparedness for the uncertainties resulting from upheaval in the Middle East, says Miller. Moreover, he adds, the administration has a “messaging problem” in that there was a “clear effort at painting these events … in a way to make the administration’s response look more favorable.”

But to compare the Benghazi attack to the Iran hostage crisis and the 1980 election is an exaggeration, Miller says. As for former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) characterizing the administration’s changing account of Benghazi – from a spontaneous mob flare-up to a terrorist attack – as “Obama’s Watergate,” Miller says, “Oh, please.”

A new Washington Post poll shows Romney leading now among independents on whom they most trust on the broad issue of “international affairs.” (The poll suggests that the same independents still prefer Obama on handling terrorism and an international crisis.)

That suggests Romney can capitalize on the issue of Obama’s “competence” as raised by the Benghazi attack – but not, Miller says, if the Republican challenger continues to go from there to attacking Obama as weak on Iran or saying he “lacks resolve” in the Middle East in a way that suggests Romney would steer the US into another war.

“Only two issues move voters in the area of foreign policy, and those are one, security, and two, prosperity,” Miller says. To the extent that a war with Iran could trigger skyrocketing gasoline prices, he says, and as long as there are no terrorist attacks on American soil, “it’s going to be hard for Romney to move the dial with his talk of a tougher approach” to the world.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Can Mitt Romney damage Obama over Benghazi attack?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/1001/Can-Mitt-Romney-damage-Obama-over-Benghazi-attack
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe