Now that the primary is over, James Joyner has to put on his big velvet hat, platform shoes and grillz and start working the streets for his man Romney:
But, of course, Romney is a veritable Henry Kissinger compared to the Barack Obama we elected in 2008. Hell, just running the 2002 Olympics gives him more foreign policy experience than Obama had coming in to the Oval Office. As it turns out, it doesn’t much matter. Obama committed a ridiculous number of minor gaffes in his handling of foreign affairs early on and his administration continues to botch the roll-outs of otherwise well-crafted policy decisions. But he’s done a good job of managing key decisions, even in cases (like the Libya intervention) where I disagree with them.
I’ll let Daniel Larison do the heavy lifting taking down the Olympics nonsense, as he points out, correctly, that Romney is the most inexperienced GOP candidate on foreign policy in recent memory. Not to mention what many of Romney’s pimps seem to forget, that he’s running against Obama in 2012, not 2008.
But what’s this about minor gaffes? There was the recent hot mic incident, but other than that, it seems to me that the Obama’s in-person diplomacy has been remarkably gaffe-free. Can anyone who’s got a stronger stomach for the Fox Nation give us a heads-up on what, exactly, these guys think Obama has fucked up?
cathyx
Isn’t that why Romney hired the gay republican (can’t remember his name) to be his foreign policy expert?
PaulW
He’s comparing Romney to Henry Kissinger?
So he’s saying Romney is gonna bomb Cambodia again?
quannlace
Details? You want details? Don’t be ridiculous, this is Fox you’re talking about.
I LOVE the Olympics line. Can we make that his ‘can see Russia from my house?”
Viva BrisVegas
Does that make Romney a war criminal as well?
He hasn’t even bombed Iran yet.
the Conster
Even in his dotage, Kissinger wouldn’t still refer to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Romney’s an idiot who has no idea what in the world is going on and he’s going to prove it every day in every way right up to the election.
schrodinger's cat
Hey don’t be mean to JJ, he is a reasonable conservative, or something like that, so I was told in the comment section of this very blog.
Chyron HR
I guess a President of the United States is kind of like being an Olympic organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.
JGabriel
Not that this makes Rmoney’s foreign policy experience look any better, but we are talking about the party that ran Clusterfuck for president 12 years ago, whose only foreign policy experiences were the rare occasions when he got dragged into another country as part of his daddy’s entourage.
.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, he’s black.
‘Nuff said!
General Stuck
With an Emperor Romney, foreign policy will be held in the Colosseum with Rose Petals and thumbs up, or down.
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
Furthermore, when given the opportunity to travel to exotic foreign lands on Uncle Sugar’s dime, he politely declined said opportunity because, well, he’s never been in to actually putting his ass one the line.
Skerry
Romney ran/”saved” the Olympics by lobbying Congress and getting hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, aka a bailout. Not exactly a foreign policy victory.
kth
@Villago Delenda Est: Iran might get nukes, just like North Korea did while we were doing it their way.
Redshift
Well, there was that gaffe where he said he wouldn’t respect Pakistan’s sovereignty if we had intelligence that bin Laden was there. You wouldn’t think they’d want to remind people of that one, though…
kd bart
Well, that Osama thing. He wasn’t suppose to kill him. Just forget that he exists.
Ash Can
For some reason, I didn’t think James Joyner was quite this fucking stupid. Silly me.
boss bitch
Well there was the time when he visited the Queen of England and apparently made an oopsie with the national anthem or some such nonsense. That whole trip went fantastic but THAT is what the American media focused on. Not the throngs of foreigners and foreign leaders that rushed to see him and shake his hand.
Beauzeaux
Kissinger? One of the foulest human beings to ever walk the planet? (And there’s plenty of competition at the top levels.)
The idea that anyone would want to be compared to Kissinger is revolting unless it’s “Well, at least he isn’t quite a war criminal like Henry Kissinger. Yet.”
ruemara
You do realize that the fuck-ups are what we would call, wandering about in public, claiming to be president and touching important shit while being black? Right? Trust me, summed up, they think all the world sees Obama as a bone through his nose ignorant savage or low rent ghetto raised boy, just like they do.
Kane
Steve Benen posts a chart which shows that “Romney is the least experienced major-party presidential nominee since Republican Wendell Wilkie lost to FDR in 1940. If Romney wins, he’ll be the least experienced president since Woodrow Wilson…”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/27/11429193-again-with-the-inexperienced-line
White Trash Liberal
Doesn’t matter what Romney’s experience is… What matters is he’ll reach into Dubya’s grab bag and hire fucksticks like Bolton to manage the State Department.
rikyrah
Willard Romney has not done anything that would indicate he’d take a risk.
Steve Benen wrote over at the Maddow Blog that Willard is the least experienced Presidential Nominee in over 70 years.
Even Tweety pointed out that Willard doesn’t have shyt on foreign policy.
It KILLS THEM that President Obama has taken away foreign policy from them.
KILLS THEM.
Kiril
Obama fuckups per Fox would probably be: giving DVDs to the UK prime minister as a gift (they gave us some custom-made thing, I forget what), bowing to the Emperor of Japan and other potentates (because Presidents shouldn’t bow to anyone), and the so-called “apology tour” (which was just made up).
gaz
The poor guy is getting his ass handed to him in the comments section. His ass. Handed to him, neatly gift-wrapped. On his own site.
I almost feel bad for him.
It’s like he threw a party at his house, and his guests returned the favor by moving the snack table out of the way and throwing him a blanket party instead.
BenjaminJB
@boss bitch and @Kiril got it, I think: all of the “Obama made a gaffe” stories are about feelings and seeming protocol, not policy issues:
Obama seems to bow to this guy or that guy (Saudi or Japanese);
Obama doesn’t honor our special relationship with the UK by presenting sub-par gifts (giving Gordon Brown Region-1 DVDs when Brown gave him a custom-made pencil holder from an anti-slavery ship (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/03/27/no-really-you-shouldn-t-have.html), etc.);
and let’s throw in the Hillary Clinton Russian “reset” button gaffe (where the Russian actually said something like “overcharge”).
In other words, these are just more anecdotes to fuel the “dumb president/disrespectful president” memes on the right-wing.
TooManyJens
I’m actually fine with including that as a gaffe; as a gift between heads of government, it was pretty embarrassing. On the other hand, it was a minor matter of protocol and he’d been in office about five minutes, so they need to get over it.
The Other Chuck
@TooManyJens:
Another gaffe cited was that he gave the Queen an iPod. Leaving out the fact that she specifically _asked_ for it. Shit, she’s otherwise The Woman Who Has Everything…
Anya
@Ash Can: Sometimes you gotta take one for the team; even if it means spouting off idiotic arguments.
Mouse Tolliver
He gave the Queen an iPod for her birthday. Oops. Already posted. But, yeah, the righties really did have a serious freak out over that iPod as if it was a faux pas on the level of manhandling Angela Merkel.
Nellcote
Whenever Rmoney brings up the Olympics, I think of how the goopers cheered and high fived when Chicago lost their bit to host it.
gocart mozart
@Kiril:
Also, Obama gave(the borrowed) bust of Churchill back to England just like Hitler would have done.
kledd
Is he talking about the Mitt Romney that got confused about the difference between bombers and ICBMS, and who thought that missiles could be recalled? Or is he talking about some other Mitt Romney?
Cacti
I’m much less concerned about Romney’s inexperience, than the fact that he’s filling out his foreign policy team with Bush/Neocon retreads who consider lack of war with Iran to be Dubya’s only real failure.
Cacti
And then of course, as a riposte to Biden’s charge that Romney has an outdated Cold War mindset, one of his advisers warned of the “Soviet” threat.
gocart mozart
@Cacti:
You spelled retards wrong.
Elie
This is just so much bullshit…I can’t stand it. How in the aich am I gonna make it through November?!
Romney can barely go a day without saying something stupid or off key… as the campaign heats up and the pressure increases, he will be a veritable tower of babble. And lest anyone think that wife of his is any better — think again.. She “loves” it that women have to work for a living and raise children — he most recent misstatement. There will be more. Remember also “Its our turn”.. seriously? Can you imagine if Michele had said something like that?
Its all lies all the time. The will make up anything and etch a sketch reality to get this old fuddy duddy in office. Aside from Romney’s semi attractive face, he is an old timer, in fact and in his head.. other than cracking up a few fighter aircraft, old man McCain is not that different from this guy. Both of them stupid but incredibly egotistical. The Republican party is a walking corpse with no talent and no ideas. It is manifest to many of us already but the zombies don’t know that they are dead yet. They will.
gocart mozart
@The Other Chuck:
Yes, and with a personal touch: Loaded with show tunes because she said she was a big fan of show tunes.
pseudonymous in nc
If Rmoney had done the politicking to get the bid, that might count — though only to the extent that it involved showering foreign IOC delegates with bribes, including real estate deals, plastic surgery, college tuition and cold hard cash. Does Joyner really want to remind people of that?
As Skerry notes upthread, Mittens arrived after the bribery scandal and got Congress to bankroll the shortfall.
FlipYrWhig
The Olympics is like foreign policy insofar as both involve flags.
TuiMel
Can anyone who’s got a stronger stomach for the Fox Nation give us a heads-up on what, exactly, these guys think Obama has fucked up?
CW in LA
@TuiMel: The bit about bowing and the Saudi King is what especially gets me. That’s bad, but holding and and kissing like their buffoon did is cool?
Handy
And he is the wrong color. They just can’t say that out loud but we all know it is true.
karen
@Handy:
AND? Try, that’s the only reason. Obama is black AND he’s not as good as their blacks. Or so Ann Coulter says.
I’m really beginning to get worried about the SuperPac that Romney has. It’s making over 10 times the amount as Obama’s and it’s bottomless. And of course, the youth enthusiasm gap, not to mention the independents that Obama must get. Put all those together and it won’t matter how much Romney fucks up. Especially since he’s not going to be the one in power, the GOP congress will be. After all, that’s the plan now, that all he’s there to do is rubber stamp the Tea Party and Grover Norquist.
Plus I don’t put it past Romney to pay whoever is in charge of counting the votes for them to “accidentally misplace” Obama’s votes. You know, like they did with Santorum, though all they could prove was that the votes were “misplaced” then found. And let’s not forget the suppression of votes. I really really hope I’m wrong but unless all those things are canceled out, I don’t know how Obama can win.
SamR
@boss bitch: And as I recall, there was also a thing where they gave the Queen an Ipod or something instead of the usual ceremonial gifts.
Righties huffing about the importance of giving proper gifts to foreign monarchs was something to behold.
b-psycho
Well, there are all those dead civilians thanks to the drone wars. Oh, wait, they’re not rich white people, so they don’t count to the Fox crowd. My bad.
debbie
@ FlipYrWhig:
“The Olympics is like foreign policy insofar as both involve flags.”
And having eaten at the International House of Pancakes, I can be Secretary of State.