Republican challenger Mitt Romney sought to portray President Barack Obama as weak on foreign policy Wednesday after violent attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East. Obama steered clear of the political fight, declaring as commander in chief that "justice will be done" in response to the deaths of four Americans in Libya. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney makes comments on the killing of U.S. embassy officials in Benghazi, Libya, while speaking in Jacksonville, Fla., Wednesday, Sept.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Romney used the attacks as an opening to assail Obama during an appearance in swing state Florida, accusing the administration of sending "mixed signals to the world" and failing to lead in the face of violence. 
 
 Obama avoided engaging his political rival during an appearance in the White House Rose Garden with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Addressing the nation and the world, he said there was "absolutely no justification for this kind of senseless violence _ none." He was responding to the Tuesday night attack that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff. 
 
 Romney had jumped to criticize Obama as the attacks were being waged on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya. Angry mobs attacked the facilities to protest an obscure film by a California filmmaker that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad. 
 
 The U.S. Embassy in Cairo initially issued a statement that criticized the film. Romney, trailing Obama in public opinion polls on their leadership on foreign policy, quickly pounced with a statement before news of the diplomats' deaths, saying the administration's response seemed to "sympathize with those who waged the attacks." 
 
 As news of the deaths came from the White House Wednesday morning, the Romney team scrambled to change a speech before supporters in his Jacksonville, Fla., campaign headquarters to a more somber event. The supporters were ushered from the room and four flags were set up behind the podium from which Romney read a brief statement mentioning Egypt and contending that Obama is a weak leader. He then invited questions from reporters, who asked if it was an appropriate tone to take given the deaths and that the White House said it disagreed with the embassy statement. Romney stood firm. 
 
 "The president takes responsibility not just for the words that come from his mouth, but also for the words that come from his ambassadors , from his administration, from his embassies, from his State Department," Romney said. "They clearly sent mixed messages to the world. The statement that came from the administration _ and the embassy is the administration _ the statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology. And I think was a severe miscalculation." 
 
 Obama did not mention Romney and instead focused on the diplomats who were lost. He ignored reporters' shouted questions asking him to respond to Romney, keeping himself out of the fray and leaving the job to other Democrats. 
 
 "Gov. Romney's comments are about as inappropriate as anything I have ever seen at this kind of a moment," Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry told reporters. "They are flat wrong but they demonstrate an insensitivity and a lack of judgment about what is happening right now. To make those kinds of statements before you even know the facts, before families have even been notified before things have played out is really not just inexperienced, it's irresponsible, it's callous, it's reckless. And I think he ought to apologize and I don't think he knows what he's talking about frankly. 
 
 The Mideast attacks pivoted the election to foreign policy, an area where the president who commanded the mission that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has a lead in polling even though Republicans traditionally have an edge. 
 
 "The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed," Romney said Wednesday. "In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don't spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests. 
 
 "As I've watched over the past three and a half years, the president has had some successes. He's had some failures," Romney said. "It's a hit-or-miss approach, but it has not been based upon sound foreign policy." 
 
 Obama was more cautious in responding to the attacks as the situation evolved. The White House says Obama was informed of the Libya attacks Tuesday afternoon during his weekly meeting with Pentagon leaders and told later in the evening that Stevens was unaccounted for. Obama learned of the ambassador's death Wednesday morning, the White House said. 
 
 On Capitol Hill, where flags were lowered to half-staff, Republicans mostly steered clear of the political criticism that Romney leveled at Obama over foreign policy, focusing on the lives lost in the Egyptian and Libyan attacks and imploring the two governments to condemn the incidents and protect American diplomatic missions. 
 
 Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Americans "will stand united in our response." 
 
 "Among the things we can all agree on in Washington is that attacks on the U.S. and its representatives will be met with resolve, and that America's presence and defense of our national interests across the globe will not be deterred by the acts of violent extremists," he said. 
 
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 Pickler reported from Washington. ||||| Advisers to Mitt Romney on Thursday defended his sharp criticism of President Obama and said that the deadly protests sweeping the Middle East would not have happened if the Republican nominee were president. 
 
 “There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, you’d be in a different situation,” Richard Williamson, a top Romney foreign policy adviser, said in an interview. “For the first time since Jimmy Carter, we’ve had an American ambassador assassinated.” 
 
 Williamson added, “In Egypt and Libya and Yemen, again demonstrations — the respect for America has gone down, there’s not a sense of American resolve and we can’t even protect sovereign American property.” 
 
 The aggressive approach by Romney’s campaign thrust the issue of foreign policy to the forefront of the presidential campaign a day after the Republican candidate was widely criticized for blasting Obama while U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya were under attack. 
 
 Criticism from Republicans over their nominee’s handling of the situation overseas quieted Thursday, with influential voices in the party’s foreign policy establishment rallying to Romney’s defense. And it was Obama who faced criticism for saying that he did not consider Egypt an ally — a comment that his administration struggled to explain. 
 
 “The president can’t even keep track of who’s our ally or not. This is amateur hour — it’s amateur hour,” said Williamson, a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador. He was among those who counseled Romney to respond aggressively on Tuesday night and was offered by the campaign to speak about the candidate’s foreign policy. 
 
 Williamson was referring to Obama’s interview Wednesday night with Telemundo in which the president said that the U.S. relationship with Egypt was a “work in progress.” 
 
 “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy,” Obama told Telemundo. “They’re a new government that is trying to find its way.” 
 
 Administration officials tried throughout the day to parse Obama’s statement on Egypt without appearing to contradict him. 
 
 Obama was right in “diplomatic and legal terms,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, because “ ‘ally’ is a legal term of art” that refers to countries with which the United States has a mutual defense treaty such as the NATO alliance. 
 
 But the United States tried to work around just that problem in 1989, creating the designation of “major non-NATO ally” for countries on which it wanted to bestow approval, weapons sales and defense cooperation prohibited to non-treaty nations. Egypt — along with Israel, Australia, Japan and South Korea — was among the first countries to be so designated that year. 
 
 Pressed to explain why a “major non-NATO ally” is not an ally, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland repeated the treaty argument, then referred reporters to the White House. Later asked whether the United States still considers Egypt a “major non-NATO ally,” Nuland said “Yes.” 
 
 At campaign stops in Nevada and Colorado, Obama avoided any mention of Romney as he paid tribute to those who lost their lives in Libya and again promised to track down their killers. 
 
 But his campaign responded by noting that the protests this week were triggered by the video, not by U.S. policy, and that the video likely would still have been produced if Romney had been president. And they noted that there have been attacks on Americans under every president in recent history, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. 
 
 “It is astonishing that the Romney campaign continues to shamelessly politicize a sensitive international situation,” Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said. “The fact is that any president of either party is going to be confronted by crises while in office, and Governor Romney continues to demonstrate that he is not at all prepared to manage them.” 
 
 Romney himself struck a more measured tone and tried to refocus on his core economic argument on the campaign trail Thursday in Northern Virginia. He did not mention Obama by name, but suggested that the president was a weak commander in chief and unreliable guardian of American strength abroad. 
 
 “As we watch the world today, sometimes it seems that we’re at the mercy of events instead of shaping events, and a strong America is essential to shape events,” Romney said at a rally in Fairfax County. 
 
 The approach on foreign policy by the Romney campaign is a signal that it feels it can gain some advantage in an area that has so far it has found problematic. 
 
 In addition to the criticism Romney received on Wednesday, he came under fire two weeks ago for failing to mention the war in Afghanistan or acknowledge U.S. troops serving abroad in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. In July, his tour through Europe and the Middle East was marred by missteps. And he has been ridiculed for his assertion that Russia is, “without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe.” 
 
 “We were ready for a major debate on this,” Eliot A. Cohen, a former State Department official and foreign policy adviser to Romney, said in an interview. “It just happened to blow up now. It’s there, and it’s in some ways a clarifying moment.” 
 
 In debating foreign policy with Obama, Romney is perceived to be at a disadvantage. The president consistently has outpolled Romney on the issue, and he earned high marks for the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. 
 
 Stuart Stevens, Romney’s chief political strategist, rejected the suggestion that voters may question Romney’s temperament and commander-in-chief credentials because of his early and aggressive response to the attacks in Egypt and Libya. 
 
 “It’s not an issue,” Stevens said in an interview. “It was an issue with Barack Obama four years ago, given the fact that he was younger and had little experience, and given his answers in the debates. He had stumble after stumble with foreign policy. Mitt Romney hasn’t. He’s run for president twice now and it’s not been his problem.” 
 
 Romney’s policy advisers laid out steps that a President Romney would have taken in the Middle East that they said Obama has not done. 
 
 “What would the governor do differently? It really starts with having a vision for the future of the Middle East, supporting those that have been shortchanged by the administration,” Mitchell Reiss, a top Romney policy adviser, said in an interview. “There are things that we can do in terms of what we say, the constancy of what our vision is — pluralism, respect for law, human dignity — these are things that you don’t hear from the administration, and the people in the region want to hear that.” 
 
 Romney’s campaign hopes to force a broader debate about America’s role in the world and to argue that while Obama has been successful in fighting terrorism, his foreign policies have resulted in waning U.S. influence abroad. 
 
 “We’ve got Barack Obama with a risk-adverse, lead-from-behind approach, and how’s that worked?” Williamson said. “We not only have the events in Egypt and Libya and now in Yemen, but we have in Syria 20,000-plus people killed, many by means of various atrocities by a regime, and the Obama administration is missing in action.” 
 
 Amy Gardner in Colorado and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| The Obama campaign is prebutting Mitt Romney's Monday foreign policy speech - saying he has a high bar to clear to show he's ready for the responsibilities of presidency. 
 
 "This is the same guy who, when he went overseas on his trip, the only person who has offended Europe more is probably Chevy Chase," campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters traveling on Air Force One Sunday. 
 
 "We’re not going to be lectured by someone who has been an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy every time he’s dipped his toe in the foreign policy waters," Psaki said. 
 
 Romney is expected to deliver a critique of President Obama's foreign policy in a speech tomorrow at the Virginia Military Institute. POLITICO's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei reported recently Romney advisers were split over how to handle the situation in Libya and across the Middle East, with many pushing their candidate to take a more aggressive stand against Obama. 
 
 "When he had the opportunity to speak directly to the American people about his plans on domestic and foreign policy issues, as we all remember, he didn’t bring up Afghanistan, he didn’t bring up the troops," Psaki said. 
 
 "We’re certainly interested in what he has to say, but this is his fourth or fifth retake at trying to lay out his foreign policy positions for the American people. And at this point, it’s a very high bar he would have to jump over to convince them he’s prepared to be Commander-in-Chief and to address all of the foreign policy challenges you’ve mentioned that we’re facing," Psaki said. 
 
 The Romney campaign pushed back. 
 
 “In every region of the world—and particularly in the Middle East—American influence has been weakened by President Obama’s failed foreign policy," said spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. "American security and the cause of freedom cannot afford four more years like the last four years, and Mitt Romney will restore the bi-partisan tradition of American leadership abroad that President Obama has not lived up to. Mitt Romney understands that a strong America is vital to ensuring peace and prosperity for our nation and our friends and allies.” 
 
 Read more about: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Foreign Policy, Jen Psaki, Election 2012, Amanda Henneberg ||||| FAIRFAX, Va. — Mitt Romney didn’t repeat his strong criticism of President Barack Obama over the response to protests at U.S. diplomatic posts in Egypt and Libya at a campaign rally here Thursday. 
 
 He did note the death of four Americans, calling it “a tragedy to lose such a wonderful, wonderful ah, wonderful people,” as he was interrupted by protesters on site in this all-important swing state. 
 
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 reset Romney campaigns in Fairfax, Va. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Mitt opens foreign policy debate) 
 
 One protester, caught on camera by networks covering the event, shouted “Why are you politicizing Libya?” before being shouted down by the crowd, which began chanting “USA.” The protester was escorted out of the event. 
 
 “I would offer a moment of silence, but one gentleman doesn’t want to be silent — so we’re going to keep on going,” Romney said. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Anti-U.S. protests in Middle East, North Africa) 
 
 Aside from the brief remarks noting the deaths of the Americans — including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, Romney made no other mention of the growing controversy. 
 
 It was a stark shift from yesterday for the GOP presidential nominee, who slammed the Obama administration for wanting to “apologize” for the American values that led to the attacks on the North African embassies. 
 
 At a press conference on Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla., Romney continued to sharply criticize the Obama administration “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.” 
 
 Romney said that during a campaign it’s appropriate to highlight differences between himself and the president, including on foreign policy. 
 
 Romney came under fire from both sides of the political spectrum for his remarks, which critics said were out of line because he was politicizing the issue while the nation is still dealing with an international crisis. But some Republicans — including Romney adviser and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, National Review Editor Rich Lowry and Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol — argued that Romney should tackle the president on his Middle Eastern policy. 
 
 Romney’s stump speech at a park in Northern Virginia on Thursday did include a heavier-than-usual dose of foreign policy. 
 
 Romney criticized Obama for reductions in defense spending and the potential deep cuts if the White House and Congress can’t agree to a budget deal by the end of this year and sequestration ensues.
– And now for something frothy on the campaign trail: President Obama is pretty certain he's "eye candy," at least when it comes to the women on The View. But forget anything serious, ladies. He spent part of his appearance, scheduled to air today, holding hands with the First Lady, notes Politico. Obama shrugged off possible criticisms that he should be attending to international diplomacy with world leaders gathered for the annual opening of the UN General Assembly in New York instead of showing up on The View. "I told folks I'm just supposed to be eye candy here for you guys," Obama quipped to the five female co-hosts. As the show was being taped, Hillary Clinton was in the city meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, notes the Times. But Obama, for the time being, was sticking to family issues, and talked about how Michelle can make him mad "when she's being thoroughly unreasonable," he joked. Someone no doubt making him mad for real was Mitt Romney, who hammered Obama yesterday on the Mideast, particularly on his handling of the lethal attack on the US consulate in Libya earlier this month. "These are not bumps in the road; these are human lives,” Romney said yesterday in Colorado, referring to the president's own words concerning problems in the region. “This is time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East." White House press secretary Jay Carney called the attacks “desperate” and “offensive” attempts by Romney in a race he's losing. Carney might dismiss criticism over Libya, but questions linger.