The jokes on Obama, Romney in brief cease-fire

The White House foes, who made little secret of their antipathy at the debate on Long Island on Tuesday, were to sit feet apart at the top table at the glittering white-tie gala in New York\'s Manhattan\'s Astoria hotel.

The appearance comes 19 days before the election, with the rivals locked in a nerve jangling and tight campaign and chasing one another through the handful of battleground states that will decide who calls the White House home.

Before the jokes, President Obama sat down with Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central\'s satirical "The Daily Show" and denied his administration had reacted with "confusion" to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

"I wasn\'t confused about the fact that we needed to ramp up diplomatic security around the world right after it happened," Obama said, of the attack on September 11 which killed four Americans.

"I wasn\'t confused about the fact that we had to investigate exactly what happened so it gets fixed. And I wasn\'t confused about the fact that we\'re going to hunt down whoever did it."

The Democratic president, parrying Republican claims of a cover-up, said he had passed on information to Americans about the attack as soon as he had it, and promised to fix any security lapses it revealed.

The "Alfred E. Smith" dinner, named in honor of a former New York governor and held to raise money for Catholic charities, has a reputation for a gentle brand of humor, although both men will still try to score points.

In 2008, for example, Obama teased his then opponent John McCain about his age, and joked: "If we keep talking about the economy, McCain\'s going to lose. So, tonight I\'d like to talk about the economy."

But both candidates also made jokes about themselves, and this year\'s dinner is expected to be a chance for Romney and Obama to appear warmer and more likable than they have in the rough-and-tumble of the recent campaign.

The evident dislike the men feel for each other -- compounded by the tension both must feel with opinion polls showing they neck-and-neck -- came to a head on Tuesday night in a fiercely-contested televised debate.

So tense was the encounter that Romney\'s eldest son Tagg, a 42-year-old financier who has taken time off to support his father\'s campaign, told a radio station in North Carolina it made him want to "take a swing at" Obama.

Obama had a bad night in the first debate on October 3 and came back all guns blazing Tuesday, tagging Romney\'s tax plans as a "sketchy deal" designed to bamboozle voters into backing tax cuts for the rich.

His performance steadied supporters reduced to panic after the first debate, but there was bad polling news Thursday to further rattle Democrats as Obama slipped seven points behind Romney in Gallup\'s daily tracking poll.

The former Massachusetts governor led 52 to 45 percent among voters likely to cast ballots in the November 6 election.

Obama\'s campaign has already disputed the methodology of the poll, and a RealClearPolitics average of national surveys suggested Romney\'s lead was nearer to one percent.

Obama and Romney will meet in their last debate, in Florida on Monday, to discuss foreign policy, and Obama said he was already looking forward to confronting the Republican on Iraq.

"You know ... he said that it was tragic the way I ended the war in Iraq. Last week he said we should still have troops in Iraq," Obama said at a rally in the northeastern swing state of New Hampshire.

Romney has criticized Obama for not reaching an agreement with the Iraqi government to leave behind a residual American force in the country to train Baghdad\'s armed forces, which he has said has cost US leverage in the region.

Romney, a multi-millionaire private equity baron, will likely not allow Obama to forget he is presiding over a weak recovery and stubbornly high joblessness, and may try to turn the debate back to domestic issues.

Obama, who ordered the raid to kill Osama bin Laden and ended the Iraq war, is seen as having a solid foreign policy record, but the fallout from the Benghazi attack has offered Romney an opening.

While Obama trailed through the northeast, his place was taken on the campaign trail in the Midwest by Democrat supporter and rock \'n\' roll star Bruce Springsteen, who was campaigning for Obama in Ohio alongside former president Bill Clinton.

The Boss also had a solo stop planned for the president in another midwestern swing state, Iowa.

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