By Tribune-Review

Published: Monday, October 8, 2012, 8:56 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Many phrases come to mind when we think of Barack Obama's failed foreign policy. None is flattering.

From Matthew: “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

To paraphrase Byron: Those who think they lead are most led.

Then there's this of our own coinage: “Bow early and bow often.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney laid out his basic foreign policy philosophy Monday at Virginia Military Institute. And it stressed, as it must, a concept foreign to the current administration — leadership.

“(H)ope is not a strategy,” Mr. Romney said, noting how steeply the stature of the United States has declined under Mr. Obama. “(T)he perception of our strategy is not one of partnership but of passivity,” he added.

Or of acquiescence, we would add.

“I believe that if America does not lead, others will — others who do not share our interests — and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us,” Romney said.

William Shakespeare once noted that tyrants cannot safely govern at home unless they purchase great alliances from abroad. And they've been buying it from the United States at bargain-basement prices for the past four years.

The clearance sale will end with Mitt Romney's election.

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