Foreign Policy in Disguise

Tonight’s foreign policy debate promises a healthy dose of the Middle East and what each candidate thinks the other one should do or should have done with respect to places like Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Romney will hammer Obama on Benghazi, completely ignoring the reality of the situation and the fact that a President should not be micromanaging things like security at a small consulate.  Obama will talk about energy independence while choosing to continue ignoring our infatuation with the Saudis and their oil despite that country’s status as serial human rights abusers and traffickers in persons.

It’s too bad we can’t focus on some of the good things.  Like the baseball diplomacy program that uses MLB players as ambassadors to baseball crazy countries in Latin America and attempted to use the game to thaw relations between the US and Cuba.  Or how about the exchange programs where female American athletes travel all over the world to teach basketball and soccer clinics to young women in other countries?

We aren’t going to hear about any of that tonight.  But we should.

-A