Mitt Romney’s foreign policy inexperience got exposed during his latest appearance on Hannity & Colmes. Here’s what he said that conservatives will find alarming:

LOWRY: Governor, how important is foreign policy experience? Because that was an issue out on the trail today, John McCain talking about how much experience he has working with these…these issues. Why shouldn’t voters turn to a candidate who’s been marinating in these kind of issues over the last few decades?

ROMNEY: Well, if we want somebody who has a lot of experience in foreign policy, we can simply go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there. They, of course, have been doing foreign policy all their careers.

But that’s not how we choose a president. A president is not a foreign policy expert. A president is a leader who understands how to make difficult decisions and does so in a way that brings together the best voices, that considers the upsides and downsides and predicts the credibility and the strength that America has always projected in circumstances like this.

First, a wartime president’s first instinct in facing a crisis like Pakistan’s shouldn’t be to “go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there.” That’s a horrible idea. The smarter idea would be to convene a meeting with your national security team, especially including the director of the NSA, the DCI, the DNI, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the vice president.

Secondly, wartime presidents are foreign policy experts. They must have a solid command of the details. In fact, we’d be getting a foreign policy expert as president if we elected Fred Thompson or John McCain.

Mitt Romney appears clueless when it comes to foreign policy. Here’s another statement that he made that boggles the mind:

One of our great foreign policy presidents was Ronald Reagan, who even though he had not spent years in the Senate, understood a vision of what we had to do to overcome the greatest threat of the last half of the last century, and was able to bring together the various experts and the various viewpoints and sort them through and take action that led America to be successful in that great…that great challenge that we faced then.

Ronald Reagan wasn’t the foreign policy novice that Mitt portrays him as. By the time Reagan started running for president, he’d studied the USSR for over a decade. During that time, he’d written about them and given speeches on them. He’d even devised a detailed plan to topple them. The truth is that his foreign policy skills were lightyears ahead of anyone else’s.

Another thing that must be refuted is that Ronald Reagan didn’t “bring together the various experts and the various viewpoints and sort them through” before making a decision. More often than not, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He had a very sharp mind. He also had an underlying philosophy. I’ve looked but I haven’t detected what Mitt’s underlying philosophy on foreign policy is. in fact, I’m not convinced he has an underlying philosophy on anything.

I haven’t seen proof that Gov. Romney has thought a fraction as much as Reagan had about foreign policy. In fact, this is Mitt’s attempt to downplay the significance of foreign policy because it’s his weakness.

No amount of advertising will prevent that from being exposed.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Ronald Reagan, Foreign Policy, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. “in fact, I’m not convinced he has an underlying philosophy on anything.”

   the guy’s willing to say anything to get elected.

   Comment by john marzan — December 29, 2007 @ 8:12 am