Late last week GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney released the names of his foreign policy and national security advisors just in time for his Friday address on America’s foreign policy. He effused over his selection:
I am deeply honored to have the counsel of this extraordinary group of diplomats, experts and statesmen. Their remarkable experience, wisdom and depth of knowledge will be critical to ensuring that the 21st Century is another American Century.
His campaign continues to be plagued with an increasing chorus of doubters about his conservative posture. His claim to have balanced the budget of Massachusetts without raising taxes was found to be false. In a widely-seen interview with Tim Russert on NBCs Meet the Press in 2008, Russert nailed Romney:
Russert: The head of the Bay State Council of the Blind said that your name was Fee-Fee; that you raised fee after fee after fee. Thats a tax a fees not a tax?
Romney: A fee well, a fee if it were a tax, itd be called itd be called a tax. But
Russert: Governor, thatsthats a gimmick
Romney: No, its, its reality. It is. But and I have no … Im not trying to hide from the fact we raised fees. We raised fees $240 million.
It turned out that the amount raised by fees was closer to $750 million, but Romney claimed that didn’t count, because they werent taxes.
Romney also has lost credibility over the issue of federal government involvement in education. An excerpt from the Orlando, Florida, debate on September 22 is as follows:
Romney: “Let me tell you what I think I would do. One, education has to be held at the local and state level, not at the federal level. We need to get the federal government out of education”
Bret Baier (moderator): I want to give you more time
Romney: I think the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is doing a good thing by saying, you know what, we should insist that teachers get evaluated and that schools have the opportunity to see which teachers are exceeding [sic] and which ones are failing and that teachers that are not successful are removed from the classroom [Emphasis added.]
One moment hes against federal involvement in education, the next hes supporting federal involvement in education. Matt Ortega, a former staff member of the Democrat National Committee, has put up a website MultipleChoiceMitt.com which quotes Romney on both sides of more than a dozen issues.
The heaviest burden Romney must bear is his support of RomneyCare and his failed and failing attempts to differentiate it from ObamaCare. As noted by Thomas Eddlem in The New American, RomneyCare is nearly identical to national legislation enacted in 2010, mandating all of the major provisions that are present in ObamaCare including individual fines for not purchasing health coverage starting at $1,212 a year and increasing to $3,500 a year as the law is phased in.
Critics note that the latest announcement by Romney of his advisors should finally put to rest any idea that he represents conservative or Tea Party values. He named the following people to his board of advisors:
General Michael Hayden former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. He was director of NSA during its warrantless surveillance efforts to spy on American citizens. [CFR]*
Michael Chertoff former head of the Homeland Security Department who now runs a security consulting agency that employs Michael Hayden.
Cofer Black former director of the CIAs Counterterrorist Center during George W. Bushs first term. He now chairs an intelligence gathering agency Total Intelligence Solutions, a subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide.
Paula Dobriansky former Under Secretary in the State Department, and graduate of Harvard University where she serves as a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. [CFR]*
Robert Joseph former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security and now a senior scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy.
Christopher Burnham former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan and then Under Secretary of State under Condoleezza Rice. He holds degrees from Harvard University and Georgetown University. [CFR]*
Eliot Cohen holds two degrees from Harvard and served as Counselor to the State Department under Condoleezza Rice. [CFR]*
Kim Holmes holds two degrees from Georgetown University and served as Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, responsible for directing the activities of 400 diplomats working closely with the United Nations. [CFR]*
Mitchell Reiss served as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department under Colin Powell. He received degrees from Williams College, Tufts University, Columbia University, and Oxford University. He worked at the National Security Council under the direction of Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell. He served on the National Security Council, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Ford Foundation. [CFR]*
Eric Edelman has degrees from Cornell University and Yale University. Former Under Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush.
Dov Zakheim foreign policy advisor to George W. Bush under Condoleezza Rice and consultant to the Secretary of Defense. Received degrees from Columbia University and Oxford University. [CFR]*
Richard Williamson received degrees from Princeton University and the University of Virginia, and served as ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush. [CFR]*
Kerry Healey a graduate of Harvard, and Romneys Lieutenant Governor for four years. She is married to Sean Healey, a multimillionaire. [CFR]*
John Lehman served as Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan and was a member of the 9/11 Commission. Known for his quote: Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. [CFR]*
Dan Senor holds a masters degree from Harvard, and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He accompanied George W. Bush to Jerusalem to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel.
Robert Kagan holds a PhD from Yale University where he was inducted into the secretive Skull and Bones group. He worked at the State Department as a speechwriter for George Shultz and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (see footnote below). He was named by the CFRs Foreign Policy journal as one of the worlds Top 100 Public Intellectuals. [CFR]*
Walid Phares born in Beirut, he has testified before committees of the State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security Departments, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Security Council.
Norm Coleman Minnesota Senator from 2003 to 2009, he lost his seat to Al Franken in a contested election. He was a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), but switched to the Republican Party in 1996. He is a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and the War on Terror.
Jim Talent may be the only Romney advisor with any kind of conservative credentials, serving as a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Nile Gardiner a British conservative commentator who works at the Heritage Foundation. He was a former aide to British PM Margaret Thatcher. He is a graduate of Yale University, and was an adviser to Rudy Giulianis 2008 presidential campaign.
Analysts note that it should be more than abundantly clear that Romney has little or no interest in deviating in the slightest from the foreign policy trajectory the country is currently on. If he does waver, hell have plenty of pressure from the elitists surrounding him to stay the path to building the U.S. empire abroad with America’s blood and treasure. In his article entitled, Obama Will Win If Republicans Pick Establishment Candidate, author Gerald Celente said the Republican establishment is following a suicidal strategy thats stranger than fiction. Its as though the Republican campaign has been devised by insidious Democratic infiltrators.
*Member of the internationalist Council on Foreign Relations
