Hitting the “we need to bring our troops back and start doing some nation-building at home” note that he’s struck several times throughout his presidency (which, by the way, helpfully implies that it’s somehow our defense budget that’s been bankrupting us rather than our entitlement spending, and that if we can just end these wars, we can just keep burning money on the domestic front without a care in the world), the Obama campaign today released an ad touting the troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan ahead of tonight’s foreign-policy debate.
This ad is yet another bid to play on any anti-Bush sentiment that may still be lingering in the American mindset, and again trumpet Obama’s abilities as a great and munificent healer of humanity — the most glaring issue being that “bringing troops home” and “winning wars” are not necessarily synonymous. It’s an issue with which Romney will almost certainly take umbrage tonight, as well as with President Obama’s overriding, well-promoted foreign-policy theme that he has effectively made the world a more safe and secure place and preserved American interests abroad — a point that, after his administration’s bungled handling of the recent attacks in Benghazi, Obama is going to have that much more difficulty making.
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