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Romney Really Doesn’t Know Much About Foreign Policy

Peter Roff offers the weakest defense of Romney’s Russia blunder, which is simply an extended attack on Joe Biden: If Biden had gotten his way, there would still be a Soviet Union, there would be no democracy in Eastern Europe—which would still be under the Soviet thumb—and the whole world would be the worse for […]

Peter Roff offers the weakest defense of Romney’s Russia blunder, which is simply an extended attack on Joe Biden:

If Biden had gotten his way, there would still be a Soviet Union, there would be no democracy in Eastern Europe—which would still be under the Soviet thumb—and the whole world would be the worse for it.

Biden’s foreign policy record is quite poor. Anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq, as Biden did, cannot boast of having particularly good judgment on these issues. That said, what point does Roff think he’s making? Let’s grant that Biden has often been wrong on foreign policy (it’s true, he has!). It doesn’t follow that he’s wrong to chide Romney for his ignorance, which is real, and it certainly doesn’t follow that Romney’s ignorant comments about Russia and U.S. Russia policy are worth taking seriously. It’s worth noting that Roff omits Romney’s claim that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe,” which was the statement that Biden was correctly ridiculing. Even if Roff is right that Biden’s policy preferences in the 1980s were the wrong ones, that doesn’t excuse Romney for acting as if the Soviet Union still exists today. Put another way, how embarrassing is it for Romney that even Joe Biden can legitimately ridicule him for his foreign policy blunders?

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