Mitt Romney: Amateur

By Richard K. Barry

How much do you want to bet the Obama campaign will focus massive attention on Romney's response as to why he didn't mention Afghanistan or praise the U.S. troops in his convention speech last week?

This is the answer Romney gave to the question in an interview with Fox News.

"I only regret you're repeating it day in and day out. When you give a speech you don't go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important and I described in my speech, my commitment to a strong military unlike the president's decision to cut our military."

The words that stick out are, of course, "you talk about the things that you think are important." One might say that if you just use that phrase, say, in a political ad, you're taking his comments out of context. I don't know, the entire statement looks pretty bad.

One thing I have been saying for a long time is that Mitt Romney doesn't do politics very well. An experienced politician would never say anything like this. Some people think being a well-trained and experienced politician is a bad thing. I am not among them.

The presidency of the United States is a serious job, requiring a high degree of skill and self-awareness. Ideology and policy aside, Mitt Romney is just not up to the job.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)