effective. i do think the 2008 ad was a hit, which was a hit on obama that he had no experience at that time. there s no longer an operative argument, and it didn t work so well then either. but this question is twofold. who s out of touch, who s in touch, in a time of great economic distress? and, you know, being culturally connected as the president is, the bottom line is results. mitt romney and anybody supporting mitt romney is going to say 25 different ways that you aren t better off than you were four years ago. it makes sense. eugene robinson, do you agree? i do agree. and i think i actually you know, donny, i think, analyzed that ad perfectly. i do think that the if it s going to be a competition on who is more out of touch, i m not sure i want to get into that knife fight on those terms, if i m mitt romney. hold on. while you were talking about who s out of touch, we just had
bin laden, having pursued a basically conservative foreign policy that was not that different from george w. bush s, not that different in its kind of realism from george herbert walker bush s. it s going to be very hard for mitt romney and his team to get a lot of traction on foreign policy. and i think as a matter of substance, the point that joe biden was making, which was that mitt romney s criticism with respect to how the administration is handling iran is just factually correct. the sanctions that the united states got put in place through the united nations are the toughest set of sanctions that any country is laboring under anywhere in the world, and there is really not that much more. if mitt romney is for tough sanctions, he is for the obama policy. and joe biden is making the opposite point, which is that the only thing the administration could do more right now is get militarily involved in iran. i don t think that mitt romney wants to make that argument, and i don t think
our increased pressure sink in, and to sustain the broad international coalition we have built. now is the time to heed the timeless advice from teddy roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick, end of quote. i promise you, the president has a big stick. i promise you. dan senor? yeah, dan. it s all yours. can you comment on mitt romney s foreign policy? well, sure. look, this notion about the sanctions is just a small point but important point. these are not president obama s sanctions. president obama has been dragged kicking and screaming to get these to deal with these sanctions. he did not want to implement them. don t take mitt romney s word for it. take democratic senators and congressmen. senator menendez dragged them to
play into the political race? are we hearing this at all? this conversation. well, we re not yet, mika. but i think we re going to be hearing a lot of it. we have seen some stories about this notion of taxagetton. all of the things that are about the end of this year when the bush tax cuts are about to expire, when all of the things that didn t get dealt with last year in terms of the grand bargain, when all of that stuff comes to a head at the very end of 2012, it s a huge, huge moment for the american economy. and both candidates, obama and romney, know it. and i think we re going to spend a lot of the next six months, a lot of this presidential campaign, is going to be not just about broad visions for the future, but it s going to be specifically the two candidates having to address what are we going to do in december of 2012 and january of 2013. that s going to be i think front and center. and both campaigns have not yet fully engaged on that issue. but i really do think we re go
because i think we really will have a choice this time. and while we have dan senor here, something we talked about last hour, a speech from new york university where vice president joe biden laid down the obama campaign s foreign policy case, attacking, dan, your candidate, mitt romney s position, on how to handle iran s nuclear ambitions. take a listen. he says we need, quote, crippling sanctions. apparently unaware that through president obama s leadership, we have produced just that, crippling sanctions. the only step we could take that we aren t already taking is to launch a war against iran. if that s what governor romney means by a very different policy, he should tell the american people. he should say so. otherwise, the governor s tough talk about military action is just that, talk. president obama has said, and i quote, now is the time to let