Mitt Romney was incoherent half the time. He sounded for all the world like a student who hadn't attended sessions of his senior seminar all semester and showed up thinking he could fake his way through his oral presentation. He seemed most of the time struggling to find words to substitute for uh and er. An 8th grader would have gotten a D for that performance. But only from a merciful teacher. As a scorching New York Times editorial written while Romney's vapidity still echoed through the foreign policy debate venue Monday night stated it:
At his worst, Mr. Romney sounded like a beauty pageant contestant groping for an answer to the final question. “We want a peaceful planet,” he said. “We want people to be able to enjoy their lives and know they’re going to have a bright and prosperous future and not be at war.”
In short, horseshit.
Apparently worried that the bomb-invade-and-occupy prescriptions of his heavily neo-conservative advisory team isn't what a nation weary of more than a decade of war wants to hear, Mitt Romney discovered himself, over and over again, substantially in agreement with the foreign policy of the man he wants Americans to replace with ... Mitt Romney. Stances which, as in so many other policy arenas, puts Romney in disagreement with ... himself.
Take, for instance, his stance on Afghanistan. Previously, he has said that he would "evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders." Monday night, he said:
Well, we're going to be finished by 2014, and when I'm president, we'll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014. The commanders and the generals there are on track to do so.
We've seen progress over the past several years. The surge has been successful and the training program is proceeding apace.
In other words, the Obama policy, not the previously stated Romney policy.
On the use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere—a policy that has attracted opposition for Obama from human rights activists and critics on the Left—Romney was utterly lockstep with the administration:
Well I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it's widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that and entirely, and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology, and believe that we should continue to use it, to continue to go after the people that represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.
On Iran, both the president and Romney called the use of military force a "last resort."
That's good to hear when we've been told by the administration time and again that "all options are on the table." But Romney was taking a more belligerent stance previously, as he did on
Face the Nation in June:
I can assure you if I'm president, the Iranians will have no question but that I would be willing to take military action, if necessary, to prevent them from becoming a nuclear threat to the world. I don't believe at this stage, therefore, if I'm president, that we need to have war powers approval or a special authorization for military force.
Just a hint that Romney's concept of last resort might not be the same as the president's. Still, there was no evidence Monday night of there being any difference on Iran policy, with both men saying they wouldn't allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, something some U.S. foreign policy critics say the regime in Tehran is not doing.
On subject after subject, while issuing mosquito bites on Libya and Syria, Romney's strategy seemed to be to place as little distance between himself and the president's policies as possible even though that often meant dialing back previous statements that have made the likes of Bill Kristol beam with joy.
In effect, whatever criticisms can be raised against Obama's foreign policy approach, and they are many, it's clear from Romney's humma-humma-humma peformance at the debate, previous remarks he has made in the past 12 months and his eye-openingly disastrous trip abroad that the Republican candidate's knowledge and understanding of the global arena seems confined to the quality of hotel room service on visits to his money in the Cayman Islands.
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