Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said her inbox was flooded Tuesday morning with emails calling Romney’s comments a “disaster.”

“I’d thought of Romney as a mainstream Republican – supporting American strength and American leadership, but this doesn’t reflect that,” she said. “Romney has proven himself a little bit of a weathervane and I guess he senses that positioning himself in this place is good for his campaign — attempting to appease Ron Paul’s constituents without actually being Ron Paul.”…

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, former Bush aide Dan Senor, and other figures from that hawkish Republican wing didn’t respond to questions about Romney – in part because, one pro-war Republican said, they couldn’t quite figure out what he was getting at in a debate performance that also included some more hawkish language, and the mystifying reference to Afghan “independence.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” said one pro-war Republican. “Nobody’s over there fighting for Aghan independence. From who?”