In Romney's World, Truth is a Foreign Concept

Mitt Romney gave his first major foreign policy speech on Monday. Not surprisingly, he condemned everything President Obama has done since taking office.

what eye thynk:   Romney talks, makes up his own facts and then repeats them to the Republican faithful who swallow them whole. They don’t seem to notice that what he is saying is either an outright lie or the exact opposite of what he said just a short while ago. Listening to his speech on Monday, it was like he sat down, created the world he wanted to run against and then wrote a speech about it. (Truth?  We don't need no stinking truth!)

Last month, Romney’s foreign policy advisor, Robert O’Brien, called President Obama’s focus on foreign policy “a distraction” that Obama was using to take attention away from domestic problems. On Monday, Mr. Romney said that the President hasn’t put enough focus on strengthening our foreign policy agenda. (One or the other, Mitt; too much focus or not enough, which is it?)

Last year Romney said that the President was too aggressive in his approach to helping Libya’s rebel forces overthrow Qaddafi. He said it would end in “massive strategic failure”. On Monday, Romney presented his opinion that President Obama is being too passive in his support of Syria. “The president has failed to offer the tangible support that our partners want and need.” He failed to note that we have been sending assistance to the Syrian rebel forces for months. (So Romney wants us to be passively aggressive or is it aggressively passive?)

As for Israel, Romney claims that President Obama has “thrown allies like Israel under the bus”. Even Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak disagrees. Last year, speaking of Israel and President Obama, he said, “I can hardly remember a better period of American support and backing, and Israeli cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than what we have right now.“  Yes, we are currently at a crossroads with Israel over Iran; but Mitt and his buddy Bibi, need to admit that last week’s riots in Iran over their failing currency are proof that the sanctions we have put in place are having an effect. (Does Romney really think that starting another war would be a better answer? Oh, wait, that‘s right, he stated his Middle East foreign policy earlier this year: “You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem… and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”) I feel better already!

But the most egregious example of Romney’s ability to make facts up out of whole cloth is this tailor-made dandy: “The president has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years.” Apparently Mr. Romney missed this 2011 Fox News headline: "Obama Signs Three Trade Deals, Biggest Since NAFTA". One of those agreements was with South Korea--an agreement that Mitt’s running mate, Paul Ryan, voted for! (Or then, maybe he really didn’t since in Mitt-land it never happened?)

So, another Romney speech, another batch of lies, another collection of complaints. I just wish someone at one of his rallies would stand up and ask, “But, Mr. Romney, what would YOU do? And, please, Mr. Romney, be specific”.