Romney is Nice, But No President

Last night, at the final Republican debate before the Super Tuesday primaries, John McCain and Mitt Romney sparred over whether Gov. Romney advocated timetables for withdrawal from Iraq after the Republican Congressional defeat of 2006. Drunk with victory at the polls, the Democrats were speaking incessantly about bringing the troops home and establishing "timetables" for doing so. In that context, both ABC and CBS asked Mitt Romney for his views on withdrawing troops from Iraq. McCain rebuked his opponent for not giving the simple and decisive answer, "No!" Romney countered quite emphatically, and with visible irritation, indignation and even frustration as the charge kept returning, that he was speaking of various other timetables such as in fact we have.

The statements in question were these. From ABC News, "Romney Embraces Private Iraq 'Timetables'," whose Robin Roberts asked "if he believes there should be a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq"

Well, there's no question that the president and Prime Minister al Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about, but those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government.

On CBS's "Early Show," Romney said:

Well, I wouldn't publish [a timetable] for my adversaries to see. [Instead he advocates] a series of milestones, timetables as well, to measure how well they're doing. But that's not something you publish for the enemy to understand, because of course they could just lay in the weeds until the time that you're gone. So these are the kinds of things you do privately, not necessarily publicly.

ABC then made this interesting observation: "While Romney's Tuesday call for 'milestones' is nothing new, he has mostly shied away in the past from employing the more politically charged terminology of 'timetables.'" They also included a statement from a Romney official explaining what the candidate meant. In other words, the controversy was immediate, not something John McCain has invented.

As head of the executive branch of government, the President's chief responsibility is to defend the lives and liberties of the people against enemies both foreign and domestic. The two chief threats to the lives of people in this country are Radical Islam (primarily al Qaeda) and abortion. All the remaining candidates are square on the abortion question. But this remark just over one year ago under the pressure of fashinable thinking and voter anxiety shows that Mitt Romney does not possess the mettle and judgment to be commander in chief of the armed forces which is fully one half of the job.

I have tried to see the merits of this fellow. He did a good job last night of defending his record as Governor of Massachusetts. He was almost Reaganesque in his warmth. My guard was coming down. But in his altercations with the smiling and self-possessed McCain, he showed none of Reagan's executive fierceness. At no point did his words, tone, or manner suggest, "Don't mess with me."

Of the four men, there was only one President among them, and that was John McCain. The questions for Republicans is: who do you want confronting the deadly international evil that threatens us in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and in sleeper cells here at home and who do you want making the next two appointments to the Supreme Court: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John McCain. The stakes are too high for a "sit this one out" strategy.