Anyone who is nurturing the belief that Mitt Romney is only talking tough re his foreign policy so he can get elected and that he will somehow mellow after November should consider some recent developments.  Romney’s “retreat” in Park City Utah for his 700 biggest donors featured Condi Rice, who reportedly electrified the crowd and received two standing ovations during her passionate keynote speech defending a return to a George W. Bush-style foreign policy while trashing Obama for not being aggressive enough towards enemies like Iran and China. She indicted the president for failing to maintain America’s position as the “world leader,” a theme that comes straight out of the Romney play book.

Romney also told 100 donors at a breakout session on U.S.-Israel relations that “he had just been briefed by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, speaking about the situation in Syria, the elections in Egypt and the effort to isolate Iran…”  Bill Kristol, Michael Chertoff, and former Senator Norm Coleman also were invited guests who spoke at the meeting.  One might reasonably be disturbed to learn that a presidential candidate is getting advice on sensitive foreign-policy issues in direct meetings with an ambassador whose country has a clear interest in creating certain perceptions, but apparently no one in Park City Utah was upset by Romney’s revelation.