Why Is Diplomacy So Disrespected?

There were a lot of things that made me mad about Mitt Romney's conduct today regarding the tragedy in Egypt and Libya, but specifically Lybia.  I've calmed down a bit but I still believe he's crossed a dangerous line where he is now attempting to prevent the President from being the president in the face of the world.  Its this kind of "fire from the rear" that caused Obama to lean into Putin and talk about flexibility in a second term.  I think Romney is making a terrible mistake, especially when this escalated to include the death of an Ambassador, is attacking so ferociously Obama in the face of an international crisis, questioning his leadership at a time where he is trying to lead facing the rest of the world.  Obama's foreign policy has been a mish-mash of trying to have his cake and eat it too while he tries to reconcile his Noble peace prize image with the need to fight terrorism.  Out of that came his hemming-hawing on intervening directly or indirectly in the "Arab Spring."  He's living off of killing bin Laden and the rest is frankly a mess.

On a deeper level, there is a growing disregard for diplomacy in our political culture.  I am admittedly biased because I grew up in the foreign service world, which is also why I am so aghast at why Romney continues to attack even after an ambassador was killed.  Yet it seems that the political culture right now is that diplomacy = weakness, that the harder we flex our muscles the stronger we are.  We have taken the Reagan mantra of "peace through strength" and just shortened it to " . . . strength."  To me, the great foreign policy presidents of the 20th century where Eisenhower and Reagan because they did everything in their power to keep us out of wars.  There is nothing more fundamental to peace than having a line of communication, and that is the heart of what our diplomacy is.  Yet we are seemingly unwilling to follow that course, instead we use our army and navy and air force as our diplomats - or last threaten it more.  Maybe in the death of Ambassador Stevens, we can at least better understand the missions that our embassies are entrusted with.