Benghazi: this year's September Surprise?

[patrick1]

The attack is bad, for everyone involved. But I doubt it will be the biggest moment in this campaign. I think the debates will have much more influence.

Agreed, in all likelihood gas prices will have more of an impact than this will.  W. was still able to win re-election after the graphic murders of Blackwater employees and the resounding setback of 1st Fallujah. For the few still swayable and the fewer still swayed by foreign policy issues, Obama just needs to the perception than he is level headed and more capable than Romney in handling a crisis.

[patrick1]

First thing they did was condemn the Americans. Second thing they did was condemn the attackers. Obviously the folks at the embassy were just desperate enough to hope that appeasing the attackers would work. But they can't have seriously thought a tweet would actually quell the violence. They were scared.

So it's not totally outlandish to suggest that the Cairo diplomats were projecting a tone of weakness and appeasement. It's not the strongest argument to make and Romney probably would've just been better to keep quiet... but it's not like he's pulling the whole thing out of thin air.

God forbid, diplomats being......diplomatic.

[patrick1]

^Well, that's unfortunately the thought process for much of the GOP base. I guess that's why Romney continue along the route he's going.

There were better ways to do it though. As it stands, I doubt this situation will significantly move the polls one way or the other. Romney probably neutralized what would've actually been a net Obama loss.

What I find to be the ham handed, simplistic foreign policy is one of the many reasons that I am no longer a Republican.  I hardly see it as a weakness to condemn an offensive and incendiary hit piece of a 'film'. One has to understand that a people who have lived in crap conditions for decades tend to be overly sensitive and are super serial about the God thing. It is basic cultural competence. All this is no excuse for murder and I don't see how one people can derive that from it.  

I agree that this is a blip as it stands now. However, things can lurch out of control rather quickly in an unstable region; so people making concrete predictions either way should probably settle down.