In the week since the last presidential debate, national security \u2013 supposedly something the American people don\u2019t care about \u2013 has become Exhibit A in the case for a new president.<\/p>\n
Why were reinforcements and air cover denied to our men in Benghazi under jihadist fire? The White House never misses a chance to trumpet the strength of Mr. Obama\u2019s leadership in ordering the SEALS to get bin Laden. \u00a0But it will not say who made the decision to leave unaided the doomed ambassador and the brave men who died with him. \u00a0This Saturday, Powerline\u2019s John Hinderacker posted a devastating compilation from public sources of what has been learned (http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/8o864k7<\/a><\/span>). \u00a0The conclusion: \u201cThe final call [not to dispatch soldiers or air support] was by the POTUS.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as with the failure of their economic policy, Team Obama points the finger of responsibility in this fiasco at someone else, hooping to escape public scrutiny. \u00a0The problem is that the president is not abstractly responsible for national security. \u00a0It turns out that a decision to deny a rescue in a situation like Benghazi would almost certainly have reached the Oval Office.<\/p>\n Yesterday in Findlay, Ohio, Mitt Romney delivered his basic campaign speech and showed what a very different president he would be. \u00a0Nationally televised, the address was one of the best of its kind I have heard in years. \u00a0And while its theme was the domestic economy, it pointed to the entirely different approach a Romney administration would take in global affairs compared to what we have now.<\/p>\n For as the speech made clear, Mr. Romney is already thinking strategically in a way that still escapes the Obama administration after four years in office. \u00a0He is looking for routes not just to traverse the current crisis in the Middle East but to transcend it. \u00a0The contrast became particularly clear when he talked about energy policy.<\/p>\n Consider first the Obama approach of energy. \u00a0Sometime after the administration turned down the Keystone pipeline application, an unnamed presidential aide was quoted explaining that the decision had been a no-brainer. \u00a0The labor unions favoring the project had nowhere politically to go. \u00a0The environmental groups opposing it were problematic. \u00a0The same kind of thinking appears to have gone into the decision to close the Gulf of Mexico to drilling for a year after the BP accident — and to refuse fracking permits on federal lands. \u00a0This is precinct level political calculation on questions at the heart of national grand strategy and survival.<\/p>\n