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Romney Goes Big in Final Debate; Hits on Obama's Apology Tour

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Tuesday, 23 October 2012 08:06

Written by Cliff Levine

If there's one takeaway from last night's foreign policy debate it's that President Barack Hussein Obama is an angry community organizer.  Forget the content for a moment and focus on Obama's dead glares at his opponent: he was livid, arguably because he had to explain his failures when he believes a second term should be handed to him.  Mitt Romney showed up with substance and went big, showing America that there is a clear choice for a leader in this election.

Mitt Romney made a strategic decision to avoid the scandal in Libya.  This was likely done because Obama would have went on the counter offensive and painted Romney as a Bush-like war monger.  While we would've loved the red meat, Americans care about the economy.  Yes, Libya is a scandal and the White House is involved in a cover up, but Americans aren't voting based on that.

As we've seen in all of the debates, Mitt Romney has a plan for the next four years.  President Obama does not because, if he detailed his plan, Americans wouldn't support him. It's a radical, redistribution plan that fundamentally transforms America.

But the biggest part of the night - which was intended to focus on foreign policy - was when Romney hit Obama on his apology tour, where he belittled America and everything we stand for.  Here's the transcript:

I think from the very beginning, one of the challenges we've had with Iran is that they have looked at this administration and — and felt that the administration was not as strong as it needed to be. I think they saw weakness where they had expected to find American strength.

And I say that because from the very beginning, the president, in his campaign some four years ago, said he'd meet with all the world's worst actors in his first year. He'd — he'd sit down with Chavez and — and Kim Jong-Il, with Castro and with — with President Ahmadinejad of — of Iran. And — and I think they looked and thought, well, that's an unusual honor to receive from the president of the United States.

And then the president began what I've called an apology tour of going to — to various nations in the Middle East and — and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness. Then when there were dissidents in the streets of Tehran, the Green Revolution, holding signs saying, is America with us, the president was silent. I think they noticed that as well. And I think that when the president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and Israel that — that they noticed that as well.

All of these things suggested, I think, to the Iranian mullahs that, hey, you know, we can keep on pushing along here; we can keep talks going on, but we're just going to keep on spinning centrifuges. Now there are some 10,000 centrifuges spinning uranium, preparing to — to create a — a — a —- a nuclear threat to the United States and to the world.

That's unacceptable for us, and — and — and it's essential for a president to show strength from the very beginning to make it very clear what is acceptable and not acceptable. And an Iranian nuclear program is not acceptable to us. They must not develop nuclear capability. And the way to make sure they understand that is by having from the very beginning the tightest sanctions possible. They need to be tightened. Our diplomatic isolation needs to be tougher. We need to indict Ahmadinejad. We need to put the pressure on them as hard as we possibly can, because if we do that, we won't have to take the military action.

This debate didn't move the needle for Obama - it's going to give Romney more momentum.

Cliff Levine is a contributing editor for Habledash.