Foreign Policy: A Tale Of Two VFW Speeches

Foreign Policy | By Daniel W. Drezne

Published September 1, 2011 at 10:01 AM CDT

Texas Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry gives a thumbs up as he arrives at a campaign event at the home of New Hampshire State Rep. Pam Tucker on August 13, 2011 in Greenland, New Hampshire.

Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Your humble blogger is badly behind on many day-job activities. As a result, I'm afraid that I can't comment in detail on Mitt Romney's foreign policy VFW speech. There was stuff in there that resonated with me and stuff that had me shaking my head.

My key takeaway, however, is that there was actual stuff in the speech. The contrast with Rick Perry's VFW speech is pretty striking. Looking at the two of them back-to-back, one can see a similar set of applause lines. The difference is that Romney's speech contains actual, specific critiques of Obama's foreign policies. These critiques can be debated, but at least there's content to debate about in this speech.

In contrast, as previously noted, Perry's speech lacked anything remotely resembling content.

Perry is a late entry to the 2012 nomination, so maybe this is just a case of being new to the campaign trail. Maybe foreign policy is not a subject that Perry likes to focus on. I honestly don't know, and I'll be looking for more content as the campaign intensifies.

All I do know is that if the status quo persists for Rick Perry, there's gonna be a lot of opportunities for new Trumpie and Blitzer nominations.

Am I missing anything?