an american ambassador. questions remain what happened, what caused it? was it spontaneous? was it an intelligence failure? was it a policy failure? was there an attempt to mislead people about what really happened? governor romney, you said this was an example of an american policy in the middle east that is unraveling before our very eyes. i would like to hear each of you give your thoughts on that. governor romney, you won the toss. you go first. thank you, bob. and thank you for agreeing to moderate this debate this evening. thank you to lynn university for welcoming us here and mr. president, it s good to be with you again. we were together at a humorous event a little earlier and it s nice to maybe be funny this time not on purpose. we will see what happens. this is obviously an area of great concern to the entire world. and to america in particular, which is to see a complete change in the structure and
he has praised george bush as a good economic steward and dick cheney as somebody who shows great wisdom and judgment and taking us back to those kinds of strategies that got us into this mess are not the way that we are going to maintain leadership in the 21st century. governor romney, wrong and reckless policies? i have got a policy for the future. and an agenda for the future. and when it comes to our economy here at home, i know what it takes to create 12 million new jobs and rising take-home pay. what we have seen over the last four years is not something i want to see over the next four years. the president said by now we would be at 5.4% unemployment. we are 9 million jobs short of that. i will get america working again and see rising take-home pay again and i will do it with five simple steps. number one, we are going to have north american energy independence. we re going to do it by taking full advantage of oil, coal, gas, nuclear, and our renewables. number two, we re go
multi-in the middle east, this rising tide of chaos occur. you see al qaeda rushing in. you see other jihadist groups rushing in. and there through the many nations in the middle east. it s wonderful that libya seems to be making some progress despite this terrible tragedy but next door, of course, we have egypt, libya 6 million population. egypt 80 million population. we want to make sure we are seeing progress throughout the middle east with having north maly taken over by al qaeda with syria having assad continuing to kill, murder his own people this is a region in temult and iran on the path to a nuclear weapon. we will get to that but let s give the president a chance. governor romney, i am glad that you recognize al qaeda is a threat. because a few months ago when you were asked what s the biggest geopolitical threating america you said russia. not al qaeda you said russia. and the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the cold
the environment in the middle east with the arab spring came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, an opportunity for greater participation on the part of women and public life and in economic life in the middle east, but, instead, we have seen in nation after nation a number of disturbing events. of course, we see in syria 30,000 civilians having been killed by the military there, we see in libya an attack apparently by, i think we know now, by terrorists of some kind against our people there, four people dead, our hearts and minds go to them. maly has been taken over by al qaeda type individuals. we have in egypt a muslim brotherhood president, so what we are seeing is is a pretty dramatic reversal in the kinds of hopes we had for that region. of course, the greatest threat of all is iran, four years closer to a nuclear weapon. and we re going to have to recognize that we have to do as the president has done.
and at bret baier and we will be sending out some behind the scenes shots after the show. bret: always good behind the scenes. stand by we will restart at the top of the hour as this debate gets ready to start. brit: we are live at lynn university in boca raton, florida, the debate between president obama and governor romney is set to start in just seconds. i m bret baier live insides the debate hall. megyn: i m megyn kelly inside the spin room where the campaigns come after the debate to try to convince you that their side won. this is it, bret, we have been all over the country the past month following these debates and this is the last chance these candidates have to move the needle in at least in the debate forum. bret: it s interesting that on foreign policy the democrats believe that president obama has an advantage. today both campaigns were aggressive. they both put out web videos.