Who'll get the top foreign-policy jobs in a Romney administration?

For secretary of state, most advisors interviewed for this article said that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is under serious consideration at the top levels of the campaign. An “independent Democrat,” Lieberman, who hasn’t endorsed any presidential candidate this cycle, was almost chosen by Sen. John McCain to run as vice president on his 2008 ticket. Lieberman will be unemployed in January when he retires after 24 years in the Senate. He has spent much of that time developing close relationships with foreign leaders all over the world (he is in Norway this week), and he is a strong supporter of Israel, a major focus of Romney’s critique of Obama. By choosing him, Romney could show bipartisanship while handing the reins in Foggy Bottom to someone with international stature and whose foreign-policy views are more hawkish than many Republicans…

Insiders wonder about the ultimate fate of former under secretary of state John Bolton, one of the few foreign-policy hands Romney himself often praises in public. After failing to get Senate confirmation to be ambassador to the U.N. in the last GOP administration (he was ultimately appointed during a recess), the controversial Bolton might be most easily placed inside the White House, where no confirmation is needed.