It's Not Obama's 9/11

Will the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other U.S. diplomats in Benghazi influence the results of the presidential elections in November? Although grave and traumatizing, the fatal attack against the American consulate – which took place while Sept. 11 drew to a close in America – will hardly determine, in any considerable measure, the orientation of the voters who on Nov. 6 will have to choose who will lead America for the next four years – Obama or Romney.

The majority of voters have already decided whether and how they will vote. Between the uncertain voters and the so-called independents, it is improbable that the subject of the economy, which is a central concern for the U.S. electorate, will now yield space to the security risk posed by Islamic terrorism.

International politics and security have until now been at the margins of the debate between the Democratic president and his Republican opponent. From time to time these two questions are brought out during polemic exchanges but only at the level of skirmishes, with Obama ready to expose the reckless inexperience of his adversary. Meanwhile Romney depicts the president as a weak defender of American interests and – with a clear subtext of catering to the Christian right and conservative Jews – represents him as a friend to the Islamic world who is hostile toward Israel.

Yesterday Mitt Romney returned to tap on these keys, attempting, very clumsily, to “use” the Libyan crisis.

To “use” it to pick on the White House, describing an administration that, “disgraceful[ly],” instead of condemning the attacks “sympathize[s] with those who waged the attacks.” A declaration released when it was not yet known that Stevens had been killed, but only that the consulate in Benghazi and the embassy in Cairo had been attacked. Then, rather than tone down the grotesque accusations, the Republican candidate returned to attack the president, whose response to the facts of Benghazi and Cairo “reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world” and demonstrates “a lack of clarity as to a foreign policy.”

At the same time, we see in action a decidedly presidential Obama, who in the Rose Garden of the White House, with Hillary Clinton at his side, addressed the shocked nation, intent on overcoming the shock and the fear rather than augmenting it as his Republican predecessor would have done. He weighed his words, mixing the firmness of a commander in chief (“justice will be done”) who sends a contingent of marines to Libya to protect American citizens with the political vision of one who renews support to a country still caught up in the long aftermath of a civil war and a government that owes its own existence to the Americans (“we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people”).

For the voters these reactions to the Benghazi attack only serve to cement the profiles of the two opponents when faced with an international crisis. Obama insists on his more political vision in the management of such an extraordinary event as this challenge to American security and, more generally, in relation to the complicated Middle-Eastern scene that is still in great turmoil. Romney appears prey to the more extremist wing of the Republican party and seems to be a replica of, or even worse than, George W. Bush in his first term – a puppet controlled, worryingly, by people like Dick Cheney, his daughter Liz Cheney and John Bolton – people who advise him, even in the hours immediately following a tragedy like that of Benghazi, to attack the president head-on, against the tradition which until now imposed a formal unity behind the stars and stripes and the man who represents it in the name of the American people.

But, if they have achieved anything, it is that they have confirmed the inadequacy of their representative and, moreover, reflected the state of desperation that now reigns in the Republican camp after the latest polls observe the distance gained by the Democratic president after the convention in Charlotte (50 percent against Romney’s 44 percent with registered voters, according to the Washington Post).

Even more significantly, and more alarming for the Republicans, is what emerges from a Reuters/Ipsos survey on the direction of the country. If in August 31 percent of Americans thought that the country was headed in the right direction, while 64 percent said the opposite, in September 39 percent now think so and 55 percent say that America is going in the wrong direction – percentages that are not so rosy for Obama but at the same time are the best since April 2010.

It means that the president is regaining momentum, as also demonstrated by the return of many supporters to his rallies. Supporters who are surprisingly hopeful, given the amount of negativity surrounding the president/candidate, even in the Democratic base.