Obama leads mourning for Americans killed in Libya

"They didn't simply embrace the American ideal. They lived it," Obama said of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others who died when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was overrun this week. Four flag-draped containers holding the remains rested nearby, attended by Marines as the president vowed, "We will bring to justice those who took them from us."

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan also paid tribute to Stevens and fellow Americans Sean Smith, Glen A. Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods. But their text for the day added disapproval of an American foreign policy that they said lacked resolve.

With Romney facing criticism from some quarters that he had fumbled the issue earlier in the week, Ryan spoke the sharpest words. Pointing to recent events throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, he said, "We know who America is dealing with in these attacks. They are extremists who operate by violence and intimidation. ....Amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership."

The day's events unfolded a little more than seven weeks before Election Day, and as a spate of national and battleground-state polls pointed to modest gains for the president following the two parties' political conventions. Both campaigns say they expect the race to be decided by eight or nine states where neither man at this point has a decisive advantage.

Obama set a campaign trip next week to Wisconsin, Ryan's home state and one that Romney is working to turn competitive. The president won handily in 2008, but it still faces unemployment of 7.3 percent, a little below the national average in a slow-to-recover national economy

Like all presidents since the dawn of the television age, Obama is often at the center of moments of national mourning, and he readily assumed the role of consoler-in-chief for families of the four slain Americans. The ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base had little precedent — White House aides pointed to only one other like it, in 1998 — and when it was over, the bodies were taken to Dover Air Force Base where most of those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been flown.

The ceremony had all the sad pomp that could be mustered.

Each transfer case was carried off the plane by seven Marines as Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta watched silently. Two of Clinton's Republican predecessors, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, also attended in a bipartisan show of respect for the dead and their survivors.

Moments after the ceremony ended, Romney told a campaign audience in Painesville, Ohio, that he had delayed his speech to watch on television. He led the crowd in a moment of silence "in recognition of the bloodshed for freedom."