I’m the last person to say that this administration is subject to an arrogant, bunker mentality that is counterproductive here and abroad. ~Mitt Romney

Where was it again, James, that Romney was “offering a greater departure from Bush’s foreign policy than any Republican save Ron Paul”?  This is someone who wants to try Ahmadinejad under the Genocide Convention for giving his anti-Israel speeches.  He prattles on about incipient caliphates just as the President does.  On any issue where he has put forward his own view, it is usually an endorsement of the principles of the current administration.  Most of Romney’s proposed changes to the status quo are improvements in managing and implementing Bush’s broken foreign policy vision. 

His attacks on Huckabee are also rather remarkable.  In his actual essay, his concrete proposals are almost all the same in principle as Huckabee’s, and his essay is much more deficient in addressing Iran and Pakistan or indeed much of the rest of the world.  Does Romney really want to get into a fight in an area where his experience is no greater and his ideas, especially on Iran, are demonstrably worse?  What Republicans seem to dislike the most about Huckabee’s essay are the unprofessional language and the attacks on Bush.  Certainly, serious foreign policy arguments might stand fewer references to Brer Rabbit, but you’d be very unwise as a candidate to tie yourself as closely to the President as Romney is doing.  Republicans apparently love this, but the other almost two-thirds of the country might have different ideas. 

I suppose one can say that Giuliani also offers a “departure” from Bush’s foreign policy, in that it is entirely, and not just mostly, divorced from the real world.