At the town hall debate, moderator Candy Crowley asked President Obama about the attack on the American embassy in Libya, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton having taken responsibility for the security failures. “Does the buck stop with your Secretary of State?” Crowley asked.
“Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job — but she works for me,” Obama said. “I’m the president, and I’m always responsible, and that’s why nobody’s more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I am.
He then turned to Mitt Romney: “The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. And I also that said we are going to hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base, and grieving with the families.
“And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State or our U.N. Ambassador — anybody on my team — would play politics, or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president, that’s not what I do as Commander-in-Chief.”
