Romney: President Obama Is Going To Have To Move On A Course Like Bush Not To Be Seen As Weak On Foreign Policy
From C-SPAN’s Book TV, Mitt Romney attacks President Obama while discussing his new book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness and praises Geo
Mitt Romney’s just-published book, “No Apology: The Case For American Greatness,” is a bid to bolster the former Massachusetts governor’s nonexistent national-security and foreign policy portfolio ahead of a possible 2012 presidential run. But a glance through the remarkable conflation of conservative shibboleths, paranoid global fantasies and deterministic myopia in “No Apology” makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the perennial GOP candidate might have been better off saying nothing at all.
Romney’s central contention is that there are four “strategies” for global power: the United States’ blend of benevolent, market-based hegemony; the Chinese model of political autocracy and unrestrained industry; Russia’s energy-based path to resurgence; and the “violent jihadists,” an agglutination of scary Muslims. Trouble in paradise, according to Romney, comes from President Obama’s “presupposition” that “America is in a state of inevitable decline.” As a result, Romney must warn the nation to continue to lead the world, lest one or more of these competitors overtake America. “[T]here can be no rational denial of the reality that America is a decidedly good nation,” writes Romney, or perhaps a third grader. “Therefore, it is good for America to be strong.” Read on...
And there's this from Jason Linkens at the HuffPo.
Romney Got Assist On Book From Fortune's Nina Easton [UPDATE]:
According to the Boston Globe, when former presidential contender Mitt Romney needed help communicating his ideas with the non-Cylons living in America in his latest book "No Apology: Bleep Blorp Blorp America", he got an assist from Fortune Magazine's Washington bureau chief Nina Easton. That book hits the shelves today, and already, Washington Post Media-Type Guy Howard Kurtz feels "funny" about this latest intersection between journalists and political figures.
According to Boston Globe reporter Sasha Issenberg, Easton is credited in Romney's acknowledgments thusly: "Nina Easton, the noted journalist and commentator, advised me on ways to make the message of what I had written more clear and compelling." Easton is connected to Romney through her husband, Russ Schriefer, who worked on Romney's 2008 campaign. Read on...
And there's this from Spencer Ackerman as well.
Sarah Palin Is No Longer The Stupidest Republican Presidential Hopeful:
I have just read the foreign policy sections of Mitt Romney’s brand-new book No Apology: The Case For American Greatness and filed a piece about them for the Washington Independent. (Hence today’s slow posting.) It’s currently being edited. My biggest concern for the piece is that I simply lack the narrative and argumentative skill to convey to you, sufficiently, how deeply and thoroughly stupid the political persona known as Mitt Romney is. It’s causing a bit of an internal journalistic crisis in my brain. Read on...