At Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney sat down for the final debate to discuss foreign policy with Bob Schieffer of CBS.
During his opening statement, Schieffer reminded viewers of an instance where foreign policy stood between the US and nuclear war.
“Tonight’s debate, as both of you know, comes on the 50th anniversary of the night that President Kennedy told the world that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba — perhaps the closest we’ve ever come to nuclear war. And it is a sobering reminder that every president faces at some point an unexpected threat to our national security from abroad. So let’s begin.”
The first question led the candidates right into the warzone.
The instability of the Middle East has a concern for a long time and has taken many American lives.
But more recently, “Four Americans are dead, including an American ambassador. Questions remain. 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?” Schieffer asked.
For Obama, this topic is one that he has been recently criticized for. When he was a guest on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, Obama said that the loss of four American lives was “not optimal.”
But Romney had the first response. And during his response he mentioned the instabilities of the Middle East and that, “Of course, the greatest threat of all is Iran, four years closer to a nuclear weapon.”
Throughout the night it seemed as though Obama was trying to point out all of the hiccups in Romney’s plan rather than focusing on his own solutions.
“I know you haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong. You said we should have gone into Iraq despite the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction. You said that we should still have troops in Iraq to this day. You indicated that we shouldn’t be passing nuclear treaties with Russia, despite the fact that 71 senators, Democrats and Republicans, voted for it,” Obama argued.
There were, once again, many instances of interruption between Romney and Obama. There were times when the moderated debate resembled two people bickering about who said what.
“That’s not true” became a catch phrase.
The immediate CNN polls after the debate indicated that there was no clear winner. Monday night’s debate did not create a significant advantage to either party, but with the election less than two weeks away, there will be a significant decision made.
