News USA Final 2012 Presidential Debate (#3) Observations

[Skrew]

Obama's relationship with Israel's Netanyahu was seen as a weakness going in and Obama was obviously trying to preempt that issue by bringing it up as often as possible before Romney did.

Personally, if I were Romney, I would have crossed him up and not brought it up until the very end - and then asked Obama if he were Netanyahu's poodle.

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

Israel is often the focus of America's foreign policy in the middle east. Personally I think we need to end our relationship with Israel and focus instead on one with Turkey - a far more moderate, respected, democratic, and secular country than Israel.

 

[mheslep]

Compare 1982 to 2012. ...

Ok, compare spending on defense. With the cold war still on, in 1988 and with Reagan's 600 ship navy, US defense spending was $468 billion in 2012 dollars. Now w/ the Soviet navy on the trash heap of history, US defense spending is $900 billion.

 

[Alfi]

My question was not irrelevant. The issue at hand is whether our Navy is big enough. Romney contends that it isn't based on the false metric of the size of the US Navy in 1916 vs now in terms of number of ships. Someone else raised the issue of Somali pirates, implying that the Navy isn't faring well against them.


Every country is threatened by that piracy in the Horn of Africa. .

NO
not every country is threatened.

The issue at hand is whether our Navy is big enough.

yes - no need to make it any bigger.
imo.

The number of ships is 'a battleship game' - loser = Republican candidate in the debate.

 

[CAC1001]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem like a good line of reasoning you're pursuing about the navy. Maybe there is a good line of reasoning somewhere, but you're going to to have to be more descriptive. "No one knows with any certainty what the future requirements will be for our military" is not an argument for why we would need a bigger navy in particular. That line of reasoning could apply equally to missile silos or helicopters, or military satellites.

I'm not arguing for a massive Cold War-sized navy, my point is just we oculd seriously regret it if we go into the future with too small a navy. We want the Navy to be adequate in size to meet any potential challenges.

No. You completely missed the point. Our Army doesn't need or want lots of horses and bayonets.

I don't think I missed the point at all. And BTW, the modern infantry still carry bayonets.

One modern tank will take care of army of gnats in short order. Our Navy doesn't need or want hundreds and hundreds of small boats. Suppose you and I have a mock naval battle. I'll let you have the entire 1917 Navy, I'll take just one modern carrier group. Who wins?

Counting the number of troops, or the number of aircraft, or the number of ships is a false metric. Our modern service has chosen killing quality over sheer quantity of troops/aircraft/ships. It's killing power, not number, that counts.

Who said anything about small boats? Yes, we don't need loads of ships, but could we get by with just a few carrier battle groups as well? Numbers still do count.

That killing power is expensive. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer costs $1.8 billion each. The newest class of destroyers, with USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) to be the first of the line, will cost $3.3 billion each. Aircraft carriers are even more expensive, $9 billion (estimated) for the new Gerald R. Ford class of carriers. We can't afford hundreds and hundreds of such ships. We don't need hundreds and hundreds of them.

Right now, we don't, but my point was we could end up facing a conflict in the future where a larger navy is needed.

Some of us don't spend the big bucks on the chance we might be invaded. Perhaps we don't live in the same kind of fear that Americans seen to have.

Most other countries don't need to as the United States protected them throughout the Cold War, and now serves as the backbone of NATO and underwrites global security and global trade.

This Romney guy is a business man and ONLY a business man.

as Obama said:The company is called China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and it does, in fact, do business with Iran.
I do not believe Romney will cripple his own investments.

Romney's wealth is managed by a blind trust. Obama's pension, as Romney pointed out in the second debate, also has investments in Chinese companies: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...-says-obama-also-has-investments-chinese-com/

 

[mheslep]

Suppose you and I have a mock naval battle. I'll let you have the entire 1917 Navy, I'll take just one modern carrier group. Who wins?

There's a limit to relying simply on lethality multipliers of a given ship. If your modern carrier group happens to be in the Pacific while the 1917 Navy is in the Atlantic, any number of east coast cities are still destroyed, even with ye olde battleships.

 

[Evo]

Let's try not to dwell to much on specifics of the navy, the thread is about all debate topics and getting too detailed about one topic tends to derail the thread a bit.

 

[D H]

Getting back on the main topic, this debate probably means less to the outcome of the upcoming election than does today's big drop in the Dow. This election is going to be about economics, not foreign policy. Most people have had it up to here with foreign policy given that we have been at war for the last 11 years.

 

[Evo]

Gas prices have had a huge price drop this past week, over 50 cents a gallon. That's good since people blame the president for gas prices.

 

[SixNein]

I thought the foreign policy debate was worthless. The most interesting thing in the entire debate was its lack of real content.

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

2. No mention of torture policy.

3. No mention of climate change?!

4. No mention of the power transition in China?

5. Plenty to talk about with developing nations like India, Brazil, etc


But no... our foreign policy consisted of Israel and talk about how an already gigantic military needs to be super duper gigantic.

 

[mege]

I'm very glad that Gov. Romney called out the President on his claim of 'increasing fundamental research' (via green loans). The president was not prepared to defend that statement, and it was pretty clear.

I don't know if Gov. Romney would necessarily increase academic research (except to restore it to former levels), but he sure wouldn't be funding companies to build already-developed technologies and call it 'fundamental research'.

 

[mheslep]

I thought the foreign policy debate was worthless. The most interesting thing in the entire debate was its lack of real content.

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

 

[D H]

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

4. No mention of the power transition in China?

What could either one say? The US is pretty much powerless regarding whether Europe drives itself into a black hole, and is even more powerless with regard to the power transition in China. Subjects over which the President has no control are anathema to standing Presidents and Presidential wanna-bes alike.

3. No mention of climate change?!

The only ones who want to hear the candidates directly address climate change are the far right and far left, people whose votes were cast in concrete before the election cycle started.

These debates were about convincing that small segment of undecided voters in a small number of states to finally choose a candidate. Neither candidate was going to touch something as politically toxic or boringly wonkish as climate change.

 

[SixNein]

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

So foreign policy = domestic policy?

0.o

 

[SixNein]

What could either one say? The US is pretty much powerless regarding whether Europe drives itself into a black hole, and is even more powerless with regard to the power transition in China. Subjects over which the President has no control are anathema to standing Presidents and Presidential wanna-bes alike.


The only ones who want to hear the candidates directly address climate change are the far right and far left. Their votes are cast in concrete. These debates were about convincing that small segment of undecided voters in a small number of states to finally choose a candidate. Neither candidate was going to touch something as politically toxic or boringly wonkish as climate change.

The purpose of foreign policy is to influence or respond to events outside of US control.

The US does have ability to apply pressure on key European states that are dragging their feet. And it has been involved in the crisis through the Treasury Secretary. But suppose Europe is uncontrollable. What is the President planning to do to mitigate the damage that such an event would create? How would the president handle the situation? In fact, how does the US plan on getting the economy up to full pace with Europe on the brink?

How does the president feel about the trans-Atlantic alliance in general? Is he going to weaken, strengthen, or do nothing at all with the alliance?


As far as the power change in China, what opportunities and risks do the candidates see from this transition?

This is the first series of debates since 88 that climate change hasn't been mentioned. And it's perhaps the most challenging and dangerous foreign policy issue on the table.

 

[BobG]

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

It only makes sense to pander to a nation that has a defense budget greater than the next 10 nations combined - especially when you have hostile enemies on both your Northern border and Southern border ready to invade you as soon as you let your guard down.

Or did I mix something up from the debate. Maybe it was us that had the defense budget that was greater than the next 10 nations combined. And maybe we won't be invaded by Canada and Mexico.

In a way, one does wonder why the US is so much more concerned about pleasing Israel than Israel is with pleasing the US.

We seem to have a knack for those type of relationships. We gave another one of our allies - Pakistan - lots of military aid, hoping they'd use that military aid to help us track down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Most of that military aid went to beefing up Pakistan's defenses against India. I'm not sure we were getting much bang for our buck. (And then people wonder why Obama would suggest that Pakistan might not be such a close friend, regardless of the relationships we established immediately after 9/11 when Musharraf pledged a full commitment to combating terrorism in spite of Pakistan being one of the major breeding grounds for terrorism.)

 

[rootX]

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

Is there anything that's even under President's control especially when it comes to foreign affairs?

I think it was very important to discuss more on China, other growing economies, and Euro. The debate was mainly focused on what candidates could blame each other on not what is important for the US in the long run.

 

[rootX]

It only makes sense to pander to a nation that has a defense budget greater than the next 10 nations combined - especially when you have hostile enemies on both your Northern border and Southern border ready to invade you as soon as you let your guard down.

Or did I mix something up from the debate. Maybe it was us that had the defense budget that was greater than the next 10 nations combined. And maybe we won't be invaded by Canada and Mexico.

In a way, one does wonder why the US is so much more concerned about pleasing Israel than Israel is with pleasing the US.

We seem to have a knack for those type of relationships. We gave another one of our allies - Pakistan - lots of military aid, hoping they'd use that military aid to help us track down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Most of that military aid went to beefing up Pakistan's defenses against India. I'm not sure we were getting much bang for our buck. (And then people wonder why Obama would suggest that Pakistan might not be such a close friend, regardless of the relationships we established immediately after 9/11 when Musharraf pledged a full commitment to combating terrorism in spite of Pakistan being one of the major breeding grounds for terrorism.)

I recall reading an interesting article that no matter what Pakistan does, US will have to spend quite a bit of money on it. Israel seems also similar to Pakistan as you pointed out. Israel can do whatever it wants and still enjoy the US support IMO.

 

[mheslep]

Gas prices have had a huge price drop this past week, over 50 cents a gallon.

Over 50?

10/8: 3.85
10/15: 3.82
10/22: 3.69, California $4.35


with diesel flat.

 

[Evo]

Over 50?

10/8: 3.85
10/15: 3.82
10/22: 3.69, California $4.35


with diesel flat.

Regular $3.37 here, just updated 2 hours ago at the station I go to. Costco & Sam's club $3.33, but I don't get gas there.

Oh, I forgot, it's cheaper on the MO side, 3 miles from here $3.09 a gallon, same gas station brand I use and it says prices are falling.

 

[mheslep]

Regular $3.37 here, just updated 2 hours ago at the station I go to. Costco & Sam's club $3.33, but I don't get gas there.

Oh, I forgot, it's cheaper on the MO side, 3 miles from here $3.09 a gallon, same gas station brand I use and it says prices are falling.

It says they are falling 50 cents in a week?

More on point, when you say,
"... people blame the president for gas prices."
Do you think he deserves no blame? I agree w/ Obama's retort that gas prices were down in 2008 because it was the height of the recession. On the other hand Romney was correct about the federal government cutting leases&permits in half - on Obama's watch.

 

[Evo]

It says they are falling 50 cents in a week?

No, it only lists the last 36 hours. I'm going by what I paid last week.

No, I don't blame the president for gas prices. Never, no matter who the president was, there are too many factors that influence the daily price.

 

[mathwonk]

do the debates actually help in deciding whose behavior over the next 4 years will help the country?

 

[Evo]

do the debates actually help in deciding whose behavior over the next 4 years will help the country?

I don't think so.

 

[Angry Citizen]

do the debates actually help in deciding whose behavior over the next 4 years will help the country?

For a small chunk of the population who happens to be undecided, it would seem so. Romney's bump after the first debate was noticeable and hasn't really receded much.

 

[Evo]

For a small chunk of the population who happens to be undecided, it would seem so. Romney's bump after the first debate was noticeable and hasn't really receded much.

That's what's wrong, IMO, people not deciding if a person has the ability, knowledge and disposition to be president, but if they act energetic and aggressive in a rehearsed televised debate.

 

[Angry Citizen]

That's what's wrong, IMO, people not deciding if a person has the ability, knowledge and disposition to be president, but if they act energetic and aggressive in a rehearsed televised debate.

I suspect some of Romney's current support in the polls is from sheer enthusiasm. I've never seen the Republicans this riled up. This tends to skew likely voter models, as we saw after the Democratic National Convention. Anyone who thinks Romney convinced upwards of ten percent of the electorate that he was the best leader after a ninety minute debate is fooling themselves.