Greenville, South Carolina (CNN) – The handful of Republican presidential candidates who showed up in South Carolina on Thursday for the first presidential debate of the 2012 election praised President Obama for hunting down Osama bin Laden, but they quickly took sharp aim at the rest of foreign policy record.

“I do congratulate President Obama for the fine job that he did in making the tough call and being decisive as it related to finding and killing Osama bin Laden,” said former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, considered by many GOP insiders the only top tier candidate among the five who appeared in the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News and the South Carolina Republican Party.

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