DWS: Romney’s foreign policy is “unclear,” but he would drag us back to “cowboy justice”

On MSNBC this morning, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz had some tough words for Mitt Romney’s foreign-policy stance — but, her tough words were rather oddly contradictory, for which Chuck Todd didn’t fail to call her out. Via Mediaite:

DWS: That’s why we have to keep our eye on the prize, we have to keep focusing on making sure that we can protect America from those who would do us harm, not the backwards cowboy justice that Mitt Romney would drag us back to. It’s so unclear, what Mitt Romney would do differently than President Obama, other than that…

Todd: …Wait a minute, I’m confused, you’ve just sort of said two different things. You said cowboy foreign policy, and then you said it’s not clear what he would do differently from President Obama. You just, that’s two different things.

DWS: …And that is the nature of what Mitt Romney’s focus in foreign policy has been. Who knows what, he hasn’t said what he would do differently. He has done a lot of bellicose chest-thumping, that leads you to believe that instead of what President Obama…

Todd: You think it will be a different foreign policy. Are you trying to say that it will be, or…

DWS: I’m saying I have no idea, because he has not made it clear. He has plenty of opportunity tonight to make it clear what he would do differently than President Obama. Is it that he’d take us to war in Iran, does he think that we should be engaged in more military action? He hasn’t said, he’s done a lot, he’s gone up to that line, he’s done a lot of chest-thumping, but, going to war is the last option, not the first, and Mitt Romney has flirted with the idea that that’s the direction we should go.

I think she kind of rhetorically saved herself by immediately trying to morph her “cowboy” policy comment to mean more empty chest-thumping than referring to any of Romney’s actual substantive positions, but she pretty obviously exposed Team Obama’s strategy of capitalizing on any remaining anti-Bush, anti-war sentiment by characterizing Romney as the next ‘cowboy diplomat,’ regardless of whether that’s actually true.

But, what some might incite as “bellicose chest-thumping,” others might call showing emphatic signs of strength and resolve — and displaying a ready willingness to both talk the talk and walk the walk is one of the better war-prevention methods around (“peace through strength,” anyone?). Somehow, President Obama’s policies seem to have managed to worsen our standing with both our enemies and our allies; and whatever the foreign-policy claims to fame about which he’ll boast tonight (cough cough, I wonder), the fact remains that it’s tough to lead the world, either by force or example, when our economy is ailing and our national debt is one of our greatest security threats. That is an area in which Mitt Romney most definitely excels.

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