The president wins his rematch with Mitt Romney by knocking him off his game on Libya, of all things.
HEMPSTEAD, New York -- It was supposed to be a set-up for Mitt Romney's toughest gotcha. Instead it provided an opening for Obama up to give his best answer of the evening during a thrillingly feisty town-hall style presidential debate before an audience of undecided Nassau County voters. The questioners' rich Long Island and outer-borough accents served as a reminder of how unusual it is to see New Yorkers treated as politically relevant "real Americans," and their questions showed that -- when combined with the tough love of moderator Candy Crowley -- they'd been doing their homework. Kerry Ladka even got his "braintrust" in Mineola to help him out with a question on security in Libya.
Obama used his reply to take responsibility for the September 11 foreign-policy disaster in Benghazi. "I am ultimately responsible for what's taking place there because these are my folks, and I'm the one who has to greet those coffins when they come home," the president said. "You know that I mean what I say."
And then he ripped into Romney's suggestion that "his strategy is unraveling before our very eyes" and the Benghazi attack "calls into question the president's whole policy in the Middle East."