Pres. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney trade tough words over attacks

Liz Cheney, who worked was a senior official at the State Department while her father was vice president, said in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Obama has weakened America on the economy and has "an even more dismal national security record."

"Apologizing for America, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies and slashing our military are the hallmarks of Mr. Obama's foreign policy," she wrote.

The unrest overseas abruptly shifted the campaign's focus from jobs and the economy to international affairs. That could benefit Obama, who is seen as weaker on economic issues but a leader on the world stage. An Associated Press-GfK poll taken before the party's nominating conventions found Obama, who ended the war in Iraq and led the killing of Osama bin Laden, with a big advantage as the stronger leader of the two candidates, 50 percent to 41 percent among registered voters. In an NBC/WSJ poll in August, 46 percent of registered voters said Obama would be a more "calm and steady leader in a crisis," while 34 percent said Romney would be better and 12 percent said both would be equally good. But the crisis could change Americans' view of Obama's leadership less than eight weeks before the election in a campaign that has remained close for months.

Economic concerns could play a more prominent role Thursday, when Romney appears at a rally in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Obama campaigns in Colorado's Denver suburbs. Obama carried both states in 2008, but they remain up for grabs and heavily contested by both campaigns.

The Labor Department announced Thursday that rising gasoline costs drove up U.S. wholesale prices last month by the most in more than three years. The Federal Reserve also was expected to announce later in the day whether it plans to take new steps to jumpstart the U.S. economy. Many anticipate the Fed will launch a third round of bond purchases aimed at easing long-term interest rates and spurring borrowing and spending.

Babington reported from Denver. AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller in Sterling, Va., contributed to this report.