Romney paints a bleak picture under Obama

Washington Post:

Mitt Romney on Tuesday offered a dark, ominous assessment of America’s standing in the world, castigating President Obama for a foreign policy he described as dithering and suggesting that the nation’s mounting debt threatens its global security.

“We stand near the threshold of profound economic misery. Four more years on the same political path could prove disastrous,” Romney, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said in an address before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention. “Unfortunately, when we look around the world today, we see a muddled picture of American’s foreign policy and our power.”

“Have we ever had a president who was so eager to address the world with an apology on his lips and doubt in his heart?” Romney said. “He seems truly confused not only about America’s past but also about its future.”

Making his first stop in the Lone Star State since Texas Gov. Rick Perry jumped into the race earlier this month, Romney delivered a veiled broadside against his chief rival.

“Now I am a conservative businessman,” Romney said. “I have spent most of my life outside politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”

The line drew hearty applause, but it was unclear how many in the audience interpreted it as a swipe against Perry, who has held elective office since 1984. Romney often speaks of himself as a political outsider, noting that he only held office for four years, as governor of Massachusetts. (Romney’s critics point out that he might have earned the label “career politician” had he not lost his 1994 Senate race.)

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If Romney had won the elections he lost he would almost match Perry in office time. Perry had a couple of good lines when Romney first used this attack. Perry talked about his 13 years as a farmer in the private sector economy and then said, I think Texas is the real economy, then went on to talk about his success with the Texas economy.

Romney was on sounder ground in his criticism of the Obama administration. We are only now starting to see criticism of the President's handling of national security, but I suspect we will hear much more in the next 14 months.