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This article spoke to what I thought about the presidential debate. I would be really interested to hear what the candidates had to say about the Euro-zone crisis or other real issues, but they were forced to tailor their comments to appealing to people in Ohio and other swing states. Classic American political system messing up real conversations from taking place.

I noticed the same thing Eli and also become frustrated when politicians' definition of foreign policy is dominated by historical problem countries in the Middle East. It's especially confusing considering that situations in Europe can be more relevant to the US' economic situation and future and that America really has little power when it comes to influencing the Middle East. I don't know a lot about the Euro-zone and I think that really relates to how little politicians bring it up, the problem is cyclical, if people don't talk about Europe, not a lot of people will know about it, and if few people know about Europe, politicians aren't going to want to talk about it... It's not that productive.

It does seem like the debate and most of the election focused on foreign policy issues that involve controversies about trade, oil, and military intervention. The broader issues that effect the world like climate change, nuclear proliferation and the economic troubles in Europe are not as compelling.

This article highlights the significance of the Benghazi attacks for Obama as the foreign policy debate looms in his future. The author presents the developments to the story in manner sympathetic to Obama, pointing to the difference between "spontaneous" and "opportunistic" in the description of the attack and the "fog of war" Hilary Clinton has used to describe the evolution of the intelligence information. The author also selects the specific points that have become "politically petty": the vocabulary used in the initial attack, whether "terror" was meant in a general way by Obama or specifically geared toward the murder of the ambassador. A new development I hadn't heard about involves House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who endangered the lives of several Libyans by releasing information about their work for the US government at the Embassy. The Benghazi discussion is fascinating to me in a train-wreck sort of way: I agree with what Dan said in class about it basically being a non-issue, and has digressed into the candidates bashing each other on things that have nothing to do with the violence itself. In my opinion, one of two things should be happening: Romney and media outlets should either accuse Obama of deliberately covering up a terrorist attack if that's what they think happened, or they should drop the Benghazi issue if they recognize that extremely complicated events on the other side of the planet evolve over time instead of being obvious immediately. Topics like Obama's drone strike program and Romney's Iran prospects are really substantive and should be talked about at length, but rehashing Benghazi over and over again seems like a distraction from a broader foreign policy debate to me. In the end, I don't feel like the article really answered the question it set forth (why Obama is being attacked on what many consider to be a non-issue). In my opinion, Romney and eager media outlets are looking for a campaign game-changer where ther

Yeah, this was a huge non-issue that I think had no effect on the election whatsoever. Whether or not Romney did a good job of hitting Obama on it, after the debate in which Candy Crowley stepped in, the issue was over. I really didn't think this would be a big deal in the election, and sure enough, it wasn't.

I know the election is over and all, but I just got back from a Speech and Debate Tournament where my debate topic was foreign policy. This subject came up a lot, as I was arguing against the current policy, and it was very effective so I can see why this topic is still dogging Obama. Overall I think the foreign policy is bad and think it should be changed.