starting with you, richard haas, let's take an overview. is the obama foreign policy defendable four years later? >> for sure it's defendable. it's not to say it's flawless. but he can point to obviously the killing of osama bin laden. he can point to, among other things, the attempt to improve relations with china and russia. obviously he's got the uwe united states out of iraq. the united states after going up has now come down to some extent in afghanistan. the middle east, even though it's turbulent, is more open than it was. so i think the president in general can point to some areas where he moved forward and some areas obviously his critics will say where he movedded back. all in all it's a defense i believe and defendable record. >> ifill: i want to walk through some of that piece by piece. referencing the president's speech today, he turned over a big chunk of it to talking about the difference between railing against or speaking out against violence... violent extremism versus protecting free speech. why was so much devoted to tha

back with us on set, mike barnicle, and richard haas and mark halperin is in chicago. where mitt romney's numbers continue to dip and the republican candidate is now facing what can best be described as an open rebellion from the right. bill chrkristo of the weekly standard joins us to talk about romney's choice of words in that fund-raiser. in an opinion piece entitled "a note on romney's arrogant and stupid remarks been requests -- worth recalling that a good chunk frt 47% who don't pay income taxes are romney supporters especially of course seniors, as well as many lower income americans including men and women serving in the military who think conservative policies are bet are for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the romney plan. has there been a presidential race in modern times featuring two candidates who have done so little over their life times for our country and who have so little substance to say about the future of our country? bill kristol. >> not only their pasts, but more depressingly, what mitt romney and barack obama do not offe

he is saying what richard haas just defined -- it is a case by case situation.ht and president morsi promised that he would guarantee the safety of our embassy. but it's very clear that they were slow to react, richard angel was saying, there was no response by the egyptian police and they permitted that riot to take place and to get out of control. fortunately it didn't result in anyone dying, but to your earlier question, as richard was saying, you've got a dozen or two dozen marines in any of these embassies. they're not going to be able to hold off this kind of mob. it does seem from all of the reporting and the intelligence is still very imprecise, that these were different types of incidents, that the one in cairo was a mob, that in libya, whether precipitated by the movie or just an opportunity that they took, there was a more organized attack but they are not yet ready to say that it was a terror attack and connect it to al qaeda. they're just not sure. >> okay. so amidst all this we have a presidential election under way. 15 minutes before president oba

and richard haas. good to have you both on board. willie's on his way in the door. here we are. >> here we are. >> 11 years later. >> 11 years later. "usa today," as time passes, how should we mark the day? you know, there is so many things that remind people of this day. but i'm struck by new yorkers talking about the sky. i went out yesterday to pick up kate at the bus stop, and our neighbor worked downtown. on that day. and we didn't say anything, looked up in the sky, it was a beautiful, beautiful, vivid september day. the weather was perfect. and we both looked at each other and without even saying anything we were like, wow. like we knew this day was coming. and so i asked where were you? and she started talking about being downtown. and being blocks from the building and running up town and only wanting to see her kids. and of course, mika, you were -- you were at cbs and ran down from 57th street with your camera crew and were down there for how long? >> for weeks, but, you know, the sky yesterday, actually, is the -- every year since then when i see that bl