At least we’re clear.
The Romney Administration’s foreign policy strategy was rather obscure even after delivering a 23-minute speech on American “greatness” at the Citadel military academy on Oct. 7, but the looming cloud finally broke Saturday during the Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa.
“On foreign policy,” Romney said, “I would lead like a spineless lackey with Stockholm syndrome, a Yes Man who speaks only when spoken to and asks ‘How high?’ when told to jump by a foreign leader of any or no repute, because I have no self confidence and all I want in life is for someone to like me, and if that means bending over and taking one or two or three for the team—the royal team, the one-man team of me, myself and I—then I’m willing to do it, silently, clandestinely, behind closed doors and without a whimper.”
Those weren’t his exact words, but that’s essentially what he meant when he said that he’d deal with foreign leaders, specifically Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, by asking, “Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do?” by disagreeing with foreign leaders only “in private,” and by telling allies exactly what they want to hear.
Compare that with Newt Gingrich, the latest GOP candidate to rise to the top of this disturbingly amateurish primary field (as shocking as it is expected given Romney’s phobia of authenticity), who defended his aggressive language toward the “invented” people of Palestine by saying, “I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth, just as was Ronald Reagan, who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an evil empire, and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’ Reagan believed the power of truth restated the world and reframed the world. I am a Reaganite, I’m proud to be a Reaganite. I will tell the truth, even if it’s at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid.”
Ouch! Now, I’m not socio-economically suicidal or rich, but if I were to vote for any of these Republican candidates in the 2012 presidential election, then I’d cast my vote for Gingrich, because even though he may be a heartless, crooked, ethically- and fidelity-challenged wannabe Mephistopheles, at least you know all of that going in.
Like George W. Bush, whom we all knew was no more intelligent and only slightly more intelligible than a lobotomized Charbray bull, Gingrich at least doesn’t try to conceal his misguided arrogance and loathing for the lowly masses. And like Dubya, that in itself is kind of charming—charm being the one personality characteristic that Romney couldn’t obtain with two decades of one-on-one counseling with Dale Carnegie.
So like I said, at least we’re clear. In a race between the admittedly “sober” and “careful” foreign policy pushover and the loudmouthed drunkard, I’d pick the latter—and according to polls, so would most of the socio-economically suicidal or rich voters.
