Highlights from the foreign-policy debate

Michael Cohen and Josh Rogin will have more thoughts on the Election Channel, but I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on tonight’s debate, which I was lucky enough to be able to watch on a larger screen than I normally do in the press room at Constitution Hall.

The subject matter:

C’mon CNN. This was billed as a foreign-policy debate but the middle hour or so concerned budgets, the economy, and border security, topics that had already been covered well in previous events.

It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes that anyone addressed the Arab Spring – and that didn’t even include the latest headlines from Egypt. The European economic crisis, China, North Korea: nothing. An unexpected question from an AEI research fellow on Somalia was simply ignored by three different candidates.

Gingrich:

The former speaker seemed to score the biggest applause line of the night when he said the Bin Laden raid "should have" hurt U.S. Pakistan relations. He seemed comparatively lenient on the question of immigration, though his mythical immigrant who had been in the United States for 25 years, had grandchildren and belonged to a church, seemed like a convenient construction to avoid an honest discussion of limited amnesty. We also reached a milestone with the first mention of electromagnetic pulse weapons in a presidential debate.

Romney:

Not his strongest performance. Romney seemed to back away from his own tough talk on immigration at one point. I’d love to hear an explanation for his notion of indicting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on charges of genocide. His comeback to Perry on a Syrian no-fly zone was clever, noting that given the limited use of Syrian airpower, a "no-drive zone" might be more useful.

This seemed like a cheap shot (though thanks for the plug governor): "President Obama says we need to have an Asian century. I believe we need to have an American century."

Perry:

Don’t ask me what a "21st century Monroe doctrine" would entail or what the "locked down" border that he promises within 21 months would look like. His suggestion that "If Leon Panetta were an honorable man he would resign didn’t seem to go over well. This was a pretty establishment crowd and his normal applause lines didn’t seem to be landing.

Huntsman:

This should have been his time to shine, but the rhetoric was pretty heavy on platitudes like, "When our light shines, it lights up the entire world" and "trust deficit."

Bachmann

She repeated her claim that Obama "has essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU" and cribbed from the Atlantic with her suggestion that Pakistan is "too nuclear to fail."

Cain:

He continued to make bold assertions based on the mountainousness of Iran’s terrain. There’s only so many questions you can answer by saying you would "look at the problems" and confer with experts. Also, Gingrich totally stole his Pinochet pension plan idea.

Santorum

"I agree with Ron Paul. We’re not fighting a war on terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic. We’re fighting against radical Islam." Santorum also came out strong for racial profiling at airports. No one else seemed quite willing to go there though Cain came close. (Perry punted, changing the topic to privatizing the TSA) It’s a cheap shot but expect some mockery for his comment about how "Africa was a country on the brink."

Paul:

You know it’s a D.C. crowd when medical marijuana gets the big applause. Paul was in his comfort zone, bashing the patriot act, foreign aid, ("all worthless"), and foreign entanglements. His retort to the idea of intervening in Syria, "If china had a no-fly zone over our territory, we wouldn’t like that" landed a little flat. "Let’s mind our own business," is a pretty good one-sentence summary of the Paul doctrine. 

Conclusion:

Not really any major gaffes or memorable lines. Everyone had clearly been well-briefed. I was a little surprised that Gingrich’s new frontrunner status didn’t make him more of a target. If Romney, Perry and the rest wanted to take him down a notch, they’re clearly saving their fire for the domestic topics where they’re more comfortable on the attack.