a good trip over there. let s turn to ari melber. do you think rick has a point or is he missing the more insightful analyses we might make of the foreign policy adventure? i would look at it in three ways. number one, when you are president, you have to deal with the foreign press. so whether they are fair or not, that is one of the layers of international diplomacy because you re dealing with foreign governments and their peoples, their populations and what they get from the media, state run, fair or unfair. rick may be right that some of the stuff would upset any policymaker, any candidate, but that s part of the job. number two, were some of the gaffes given too much attention as opposed to the very serious foreign policy challenges we face? yes. so i ll concede that to rick, and i think people who work for politicians and diplomats often have that frustration, but that in and of itself doesn t tell us anything about what mitt romney is doing abroad. that brings me to number thre
not the border issues. let me bring rick in. so, ari is saying three things here. first of all, that when you look at i heard him. the gaffes aside, that you have to look at the policy, you have to deal with the press, and thirdly, deal with the substantive characterization here of what is going on in terms of foreign policy. do you think getting beyond the grasp, mitt romney told us what he would do say if the syrian regime collapsed and some other crisis is going on or if europe s economy fell off a cliff, if we experience growing tensions with china, north korea, terrorist organizations, did he give us any indication what might happen? there was a lot of questions in there. syria, china, north korea, and the collapse of the european economy. let me first go back and say that i think ari is exactly right on all these points. i would say on the jerusalem point, it s probably not the number one priority as ari said. i agree. but he was very clear about this is something t
and the real point and we can folk eson it now, what governor romney said is that in israel, for example, the united states policy should be to treat jerusalem as the capital. now, that s a foreign policy position, but it s also a political position. if you look at what s going on in israel, that is not one of the priorities in israel right now. that s a country that has on its borders two huge kinds of geopolitical crises. egypt, a country that has been a dictatorship and is the number one ally of israel on its border having faced an election and a lot of change and having the muslim brotherhood come into power. syria dealing with the civil war. you have real problems in israel and netanyahu administration looking at those issues and then you have a candidate come in and focus on something that seemed to a lot of people more of a political appeal back home in the u.s. i ll leave it to others to decide what was motivating mitt romney, but on that substantive matter, rick, i have to que
romney administration? he has. i would go back to the fact that most of the reporters were talking about not getting invited into a fund-raiser. forget them. i m asking you to tell me what he would do. he was clear that what he wouldn t do is exactly what barack obama did, which was send a u.s. ambassador back to damascus only to pull him bang, only to send him back again and pull him back again. this is a situation what would he do, not what obama did. what would he do? he wouldn t do that. he would be clear and consistent. we wouldn t have a u.s. ambassador sitting in damascus while the leader of syria is killing 7500 people. that s one thing. we ll invite you back on rick and ari. thank you so much. there was a big senate contest in texas last night. so why is sarah palin taking a victory lap? san stein of the huffington post explains. and millions of women gained access to expanded health care. one republican compares that to
really made too much of this from the political reporters. you don t think i m being delusional and you think he had a good trip over there. let s turn to ari melber. do you think rick has a point or is he missing the more insightful analyses we might make of the foreign policy adventure? i would look at it in three ways. number one, when you are president, you have to deal with the foreign press. so whether they are fair or not, that is one of the layers of international diplomacy because you re dealing with foreign governments and their peoples, their populations and what they get from the media, state run, fair or unfair. rick may be right that some of the stuff would upset any policymaker, any candidate, but that s part of the job. number two, were some of the gaffes given too much attention as opposed to the very serious foreign policy challenges we face? yes. so i ll concede that to rick, and i think people who work for politicians and diplomats often have that frustration, b