Sane Republicans, the small number that seem to exist these days, should mourn that Jon Huntsman, the former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China, who was the only legitimate GOP candidate for President this year, before his withdrawal in January, was one of the few of that party to express the proper thoughts on the Middle East situation that blew up this week, with the death of the US Ambassador to Libya.
Huntsman said this is not the time for someone to be impetuous, to be reacting without all of the facts, or to suggest that foreign aid should be cut, or that we should withdraw from the region of the Middle East altogether!
This was Huntsman’s reaction to Mitt Romney’s impetuosity; to Bill Bennett’s justifying that impetuosity; and to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s call for a cut in foreign aid and withdrawal from involvement in the controversial area of the Middle East—all signs of just how nuts much of the Republican Party has become!
There are Republicans who are silently, and quietly, whispering privately how crazy the Romney campaign has become, and all that they hear is that Romney and Paul Ryan are accusing the Barack Obama Administration of sympathizing with terrorists and the thugs that attacked the Libyan Consulate and killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others!
The incompetence and recklessness of both Romney and Ryan is literally terrifying, politicizing a national tragedy! And when the former Secretary of Education under George H. W. Bush (Bill Bennett) can double down on what Romney said after the first reports of the attack, and Rand Paul and other crazies can talk about losing all influence in the Middle East by punishing nations for the actions of a few, and even advocate total withdrawal and isolating ourselves, it makes one quiver at the thought of a Republican in the White House!
And when aides to Romney say that if he was in the White House, what happened this week in the Middle East would not have happened, one has to shake his head in disbelief, as if a President or anyone can control what goes on in other nations and prevent mobs or hoodlums from taking action, simply by the image of his presence! How egotistical and arrogant can someone get in the pursuit of becoming President, that his aides have the gall to state such an imbecilic assertion!
This is not the sanity of George H. W. Bush and his foreign policy advisers, or even the statesmanship of Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell!
This is the insanity of people who have no respect for foreign countries, no knowledge of the world, and no understanding of what the use of language can do in relations among nations!
How far the Republican Party has fallen, from an image of being expert in foreign policy, to one of total irresponsibility and looniness, and in so doing, giving the Democratic Party and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the distinction of being the grown ups in the room!
Mitt Romney has dug a hole for himself that he will be unable to dig himself out of at the last Presidential debate on October 22, devoted solely to foreign policy. We will see the final disintegration of his candidacy on that evening, just 15 days before the election!