In anticipation of his October Surprise, Romney inked an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today predictably portraying Obama as soft on national security, especially re: our material and geopolitical interests in the Middle East. Romney writes:
But in recent years, President Obama has allowed our leadership to atrophy. Our economy is stuck in a “recovery” that barely deserves the name. Our national debt has risen to record levels. Our military, tested by a decade of war, is facing devastating cuts thanks to the budgetary games played by the White House. Finally, our values have been misapplied—and misunderstood—by a president who thinks that weakness will win favor with our adversaries.
Well, Romney’s certainly wrong about the so-called “budgetary games” by the WH: the political process during the budget ceiling debates halted because of the bone-headed stubbornness of House Republicans. Either way, Charles Johnson over at LittleGreenFootballs identified the crux of the article’s shortcomings, namely the failure to give even a passing nod to Iraq or Afghanistan:
An odd omission, perhaps explainable by the fact that both of these long-term wars were fairly well devastating to the jingoistic “American strength” line Romney’s feeding to the right — so Romney just pretends they don’t exist… Mitt Romney’s op-ed for the Wall Street Journal is just more of the same old hackneyed right wing talking points.
