McCain Surrogate Graham Hits Romney on Foreign Policy

Wed, January 02, 2008 - 11:24 AM

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., ever the faithful surrogate for John McCain, today blasted McCain’s GOP presidential primary rival Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his recent remarks seeming to suggest the next president doesn’t need much foreign policy experience.
"The next president of the United States will face some of the most monumental foreign policy challenges in our nation's history. Because of this, I believe foreign policy experience matters. For Gov. Romney to say otherwise is naïve,” said Graham, in a statement released by McCain's campaign.
Graham’s statement comes a day after Arizona Sen. McCain’s campaign introduced a new Web video Tuesday seeking to portray Romney as dismissive of the need for foreign policy experience. The commercial carries images of an explosion, masked men holding weapons and displaying some kind of Islamic text, and other terrorism suggestive of threats to American security.
The advertisement does rely on a portion of a Romney quote in a recent interview to reflect that he does not think foreign policy is important, but that was not the entire quote and that is not what Romney was saying. However, Romney did say there was no need for a president to be an “expert” of foreign affairs.
Here’s the full Romney quote cited in McCain's ad, which is pulled from a Dec. 27 interview on Fox News’ Hannity & Colme: "Well, if we want somebody who has a lot of experience in foreign policy, we can simply go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there. They, of course, have been doing foreign policy all their careers. But that's not how we choose a president. A president is not a foreign policy expert."
For his part, Romney has been attacking McCain in ads regarding immigration and taxes, as the two debate who is the true conservative in the race.
Graham’s remark shouldn’t come as a surprise. He is typically attached-to-the-hip to Senate Armed Services Committee colleague McCain. That includes issues that even set them apart from President Bush, such as when the duo joined Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in battling Bush over the handling of terrorism suspects – a fight that put them at odds with some conservatives.

-- BIlly House