President Romney will follow the generals and Israelis.

If Mitt Romney becomes president, there are a lot of important foreign policy decisions that he’d leave up to others. Most notably, Romney often says that whatever the generals decide, that’s the course he’ll take in Afghanistan (although he backtracked on that stance when pressed recently).  Think Progress

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Romney appears to be yet another person who wants to be something rather that to do something.  In this case he wants to be president and to that end is kissing up to anyone and everything who will have some effect on the outcome next November.

Evangelicals, Zionists, hard hearted Republicans who boo gay soldiers deployed in the theater of war, other (or the same) hard hearted Republicans who yell, "Let him die!" when asked if treatment should be given to someone with no health insurance, all these are in Romney's constituency.  Ah, I forgot the Mormons.

It is implicit in Romney's position that the COCOMS and JCS will run foreign policy, or, at least any part of it that the Israelis don't want to run.  I can't vote for this man.  The president of the US is supposed to run foreign and defense policy within boundaries of funding and structure allowed by Congress.  Romney either does not "buy" that or is playing a completely cynical geme.  Take your pick among those two undesirable possibilities.

Who are the other possibilities? 

-  The president.  I am unimpressed by his foreign policy "triumphs," and his domestic actions seem to be those of a servant of the moneyed class who wishes to disguise that identity.

- Cain?   I like the smile but IMO this whole effort on his part is a joke that has gotten out of control.  The "smoking" commercial seems to have been an appeal for an escape route.

- Perry?  No.

-  Gingrich?  Hell no!

- Father Santorum?  No.

- Ron Paul?  Evidently not.

- All others now running?  No.

So, what's left?  A hung Republican convention and a "dark horse?"  Maybe.  pl

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/10/28/356276/romney-israel-policy/

Comments

[Will2713]

Ahh, his foreign policy adviser, Walid Phares. Phares was the former publicity director for the LF (lebanese forces) & their convicted murderer leader- Samir JaJa (Gaegae). The LF, not to be confused with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), attacked the LAF in the rear while they were fighting the Syrian Army & Air Force.

[steve g]

As with Bob Dole and John McCain, it is now
Romney's "turn". The vacuousness of both parties
know no limits in the current time frame.

[bth]

Romney the governor I knew was a moderate, intelligent and reasonable man. Romney the presidential candidate is hardly recognizable as the same person.

What might shift the field would be the dynamic of an early VP or Sec of State candidate like Petraeus.

[William R. Cumming]

I have predicted a very very close election for some time. Some joker factors pending like 10 states modifying their rules so that electoral college vote does not automatically go entirely to winner of popular vote as in other states.

What does a close election mean? Might just go again to the House of Representatives like Tilden/Hayes in 1876! A quirk in the Constitution could make almost anyone President.

[jerseycityjoan]

Agreed.

So here I am, wanting to be rescued from Obama, just as I wanted to be rescued from Bush.

But actually things are worse because there doesn't seem to be any candidate out there who's up to the job of running this country.

Add that to eight years of Bush and four of Obama, plus a miserable economy and an ignored national emergency on jobs, and where are we?

We are great targets for some kind of dreadful "-ism" to capture the imagination and calm the nerves of our frustrated and worried population. Right now, though, there don't seem to be any "-isms" or compelling leaders of any "-isms" out there. We're very very lucky.

I do hope that the Occupy Wall Street movement will get some good things going. Maybe the kids can push us into undoing the things we older folks should never have allowed to be done to us in the first place.

[Bobo]

Once in the voting booth I always fill in the blank for the one who I think will cause the least damage as I am rarely happy with the choices for President. I always walk away hoping for a surprise but have not seen one for a number of years. This election will not be much different though the choices leave a lot to be desired.

As to a Dark Horse, Hillary has said no in many ways, Jeb has also said no though I think he could be induced and Bloomberg seems to have no desire. Who else is out there?

Another four years of Obama will not help this country. I also have recently realized that our young people seem to not believe in our political system as if they did this Occupy Everywhere group would be marching on Washington, why not?

[E L]

Dear Colonel:
Lete's see. To go anywhere in the top echelons of our present society, you must either be part of the highly monied class or appease that class. Thus, Romney is a member of the monied class and Obama, with his background, has learned to appease the monied class. THe 2012 elections will set in concrete this choice and the resulting economic direction of this country for the next 20 years. The middle class will gradually disappear in a death spiral on the economic scale. Then, le deluge. Desired employment will be in private armies for the rich to hold power in their fiefdoms. With no estate tax to cycle wealth back through the economy, power will concretate in a hereditary class of wealth.

[turcopolier]

EL

Thanks for explaining it to us. pl

[E L]

The estate tax was enacted for two purposes: 1) to raise revenue and 2) to prevent the greater and greater accumulation of wealth in fewer and fewer families. According to the authoritative biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan by Ron Chernow, Rockefeller held about 22% of all the wealth in this country. The fear caused by his accumulation of wealth led directly to the estate tax. We could be headed to permanent repeal after the 2012 election.

[DaveGood]

Why no discussion of OWS here?

They are what the tea partiers wanted to be before they were co-opted by the Koch brothers.

[jerseycityjoan]

Don't sell the kids short. I think their "problem" is that they do believe in the system and want it to work, for them and all of us. We can't say things are working now. In fact, we have many elected members of one party who have declared themselves determined not to allow things to work. Nice way to try to win future elections, isn't it? But then the other party is determined to win future elections by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants and continuing to flood the country with more than a million new immigrants a year, most of whom we don't need in our job markets and cost us many billions a year in educational and social services.

Look at how little things changed since January 2009.

Many of the DC puppets' masters are here in the New York area. Much of the media is here too. Let's see how they do with what they are doing.

The Democrats and Republicans are both damning us to a dismal future. A pox on both of them. Where's the new party or the realignment of the current parties that's we so desperately need?

[Fred]

PL
"So, what's left?" Any chance of Hillary?

[Will2713]

r u implying EL's comment is equivalent to the pols being posterior osculators?

[Jose]

Romney knows that Florida is the key to victory, to win The Sunshine State you need to win certain voters in the Greater Miami area.

This is just another example of his pandering to the key voters in the Magic City.

Too bad he didn't wear the traditional required jeans, but he probably doesn't own any.

IMHO, he is the best candidate since Shillary won't run, Jeb can't win, and Bloomberg is probably to smart to run as an independent.

BTW, remember Greater Miami is the sixth borough of New York City.

[R. Whitman]

I think in a Romney administration we could see Jon Huntsman as Secretary of State.

[Nancy K]

The rich should never forget the American, French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions, and the current Arab Spring. However as history shows, the more things change, the more they remain the same. It is not just the young that are disillusioned.

[walrus]

Did anyone really think that the Patriot Act, the fusion of domestic criminal intelligence and military intelligence, the establishment of NORCOM, the creation of "No fly" lists and soon to be "No Train" and No Bus" lists, and the militarisation of every police force in the country was just to combat terrorism?

[securecare]

Obama will have a second term.

[turcopolier]

walrus

It was not purposeful. It has been merely the logical outcome of the Yankee dominated triumphalism that infests the land with its innate nastiness. So, take that, all of you who deserve it and read the thing about the Southerner who moves to the Deep North and then is driven to return to the Land of Song in response to the abandonment by God of those arctic regions each year. IMO God does this in an effort to persuade people (well, Yankees)to leave the land of Conan the Barbarian. His project seems to be succeeding. pl

[JWL]

What odds would you give that a dark horse does emerge at the republican convention? That no candidate arrives with sufficient delegates to secure the nomination on a first ballot?

If I were a republican, I'd certainly consider that scenario the best bet to regain the White House. Likely the only one.

[Ramojus]

Rockefeller also started to give away his fortune, due to his Baptist religious beliefs. One example of his philanthropy was the founding of the University of Chicago where....

...whoops, never mind.

But, seriously, the rich do give their money away. However, I do not believe in the repeal of the "job creators' death tax"

[highlander]

EL,

How could Rockefeller have accumulated 22% of the nation' wealth, he wasn't Jewish or even a zionist?

[highlander]

I'm not sure I followed that fully, but being a Southerner I liked the general flow of it.

[mbrenner]

I recall Will Rogers' admonition: "Don't vote - it just encourages them." Impractical but emotionally tempting. I do wonder what would happen if the NFL scheduled an Election Day triple header and a World Series game 7 was postponed to the same day by inclement weather. Perhaps we should throw into the mix of distractions another Kim Kardashian wedding extravaganza.

A voter turnout in the single digits surely would add some drama to a dreary affair - and might even induce the country to take seriously the choice of its President and a few serious people to run.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I agree - it is a numbers game and Mr. Obama has those numbers.