Kerry noted that Romney has taken “every position” on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Libyan intervention: opposing withdrawal, then supporting it; criticizing Obama for moving too slowly, then too strongly. “Talk about being ‘for it before you were against it,’ ” Kerry quipped, borrowing the phrase that he once disastrously uttered about a budget measure, thus prompting Republicans in 2004 to ridicule him as a “flip-flopper.”
President Obama was even more casual in what can fairly be called, at least on these issues, his contempt for the Republican nominee. Romney’s depiction of Russia as America’s “number-one geostrategic foe” reveals that he’s “still stuck in a Cold War mind-warp,” Obama said—adding, in a reference to Romney’s disastrous trip to England this summer, “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.”
Romney and Ryan “are new to foreign policy,” Obama said, barely containing a smirk. Yes, Obama was once new to it as well, though not as new—he’d at least served actively on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he picked a running mate, Joe Biden, who was seasoned. The more pertinent point the Democrats were making at their convention, though, is that Obama is not remotely new now.
On one point, the Democrats exaggerated their president’s accomplishment. The troop-withdrawal from Iraq was negotiated on Bush’s watch.
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