MANCHESTER -- Sen. John McCain said Monday that Mitt Romney should continue to aggressively criticize President Barack Obama's Middle East policy, regardless of push-back by Obama, his campaign and the “liberals in the media.”

The Arizona Republican, in New Hampshire to host veterans-oriented town halls at , said a weak Obama administration strategy in the region led to the violence that resulted in the deaths of Americans in Libya and continues in capitals in the Arab world.

McCain said that the administration's approach of blaming the violence on an anti-Islam video is “either a degree of politicization or a degree of naïveté that's dangerous to the future of this country.”

In an interview, he offered advice to Romney:

“When Americans' lives are taken or at risk, it's incumbent upon all of us who think it's due to a failure of leadership to speak up. If that's criticized by the media, we cannot be muzzled by liberals in the media.”

McCain encouraged Romney “to give an overall foreign policy speech, beginning in 2009 when (Obama) refused to speak up for the million-and-a-half demonstrators in Tehran who were chanting, 'Obama, Obama. Are you with us or are you with them?'

“These Iranians have been killing Americans since the bombing of the barracks in Beirut in 1980,” said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

McCain said he believes and is concerned by polls showing Romney trailing Obama nationally and in key battleground states.

He attributed the slippage to “hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads” both by Obama and by Romney's prior foes for the GOP presidential nomination.

“I watched the unfavorables of Romney accelerate,” he said. “I don't have to tell anybody in New Hampshire about the attack ads . That kind of embedded a negativity which is really a high bar to overcome.”

McCain also credited Obama with “a very effective campaign.

“I don't like it. I don't like the snide remarks, the racially-tinged remarks by Joe Biden in North Carolina. But they have run an effective negative campaign, avoiding jobs and the economy,” he said.

Still, McCain said undecided voters will ask themselves if they are better off now than they were four years ago “and I still believe Mitt can win this thing and I believe we will be up late on Nov. 6.”

In Manchester, McCain, accompanied by Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Charlie Bass, attended a rollout of a Romney law enforcement coalition.

He also endorsed GOP candidate for governor Ovide Lamontagne, calling him “a proven reformer” who “knows how to reach across the aisle” and believes in low taxes and less government.

Obama said last week Romney has a tendency to “shoot first, aim later” after the GOP challenger accused the administration of “apologizing for American values” for criticizing an anti-Islamic video.

McCain said Obama's “snide remarks are un-presidential. I'm tempted to say that President Obama can neither aim nor shoot.

“Romney was right,” McCain said. “It was a statement of semi-apology, so much so that the administration itself retracted it.

“You do not have to have intelligence information to know that when a group of Muslim extremists come to a demonstration with heavy weapons,” it was not a spontaneous response to a video.

“Every American should have their intelligence insulted” by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation Susan Rice saying on Sunday morning talk shows that the demonstrations were prompted by the video.

The Obama campaign called on Iraq War veteran Michael Breen, vice president of the pro-Democratic Truman National Security Project, to defend the Obama record.

Breen said that while he supported McCain in 2000 and respects McCain's service, McCain's foreign policy views are “out of the mainstream.”

He said McCain believes the U.S. should keep troops in Afghanistan indefinitely and “advocated military action against Iran.

“So when he criticizes the President for not being forceful enough on the world stage, we ought to be clear that what he means is the President ought to be using the military in the Middle East against Syria and Iran.”

Breen also said McCain ignores the killing of Osama bin Laden and the killing or capture of “23 of the top of the top 30 al-Qaida leaders” under Obama's watch.

Breen criticized Romney for his campaign's response to the initial unauthorized Twitter message by the Libyan embassy.

“When American lives have been lost and we're facing a crisis overseas, it's time for statesmanship and not partisan sniping,” Breen said. “It was unseemly at best for Mitt Romney to attack President Obama on inaccurate facts while our consulate was burning.”

McCain said the Libya attack was “well-orchestrated” and noted that Mohammed Magarief, the head of the Libyan national assembly, has said it appears it was planned and has ties to al-Qaida.

“How in the world could they (the Obama administration and campaign) possibly insult our intelligence by saying this was spontaneous?” McCain asked.

He also said the U.S. should defend free speech, even if it is distasteful, asking, “Are we now going to have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff call anyone he thinks does anything offensive to Muslims?”

Joint chiefs chair Gen. Martin Dempsey on Sunday called well-known Florida preacher Terry Jones and asked that he withdraw his support for the anti-Muslim video.

“I didn't vote for him to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to do that,” McCain said.

McCain said he the presidential race is “still about the economy. But for some period of time now, because of the events that have taken place, there will be some attention to it. You can't have a tragedy of the death of four Americans without it impacting American public opinion.”