By Scotty Reid, 7/21/2012, news, politics, opinion

Reuter’s journalist Steve Holland’s article on Mitt Romney’s upcoming trip to Israel takes a dig at President Obama. Holland writes,

“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will soon do something Barack Obama has yet to do as president – visit U.S. ally Israel.”

Holland suggests that Romney’s trip, which will include stops in London and Poland, is an attempt to gain some Foreign Policy credentials.  Whether or not Holland got this line from the Romney campaign, it is absurd to suggest that taking a trip overseas amounts to Foreign Policy cred. Romney could also list his time spent in France during the Vietnam war and lets not forget the accusations that Romney was still leading Bain when it was outsourcing American jobs overseas. It is not known at this time if Romney personally traveled to the other countries to open up all those off shore accounts and Bain shell corporations.

I have traveled to Canada, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea so I assume I must have some measure of foreign policy experience. Since I was in the U.S. Army during those trips on official military business, I can claim I am a military expert and commander and chief material as well.

It is usually customary for presidents of the United States and presidential candidates of both the Democrats and Republicans to go before AIPAC to pledge their continued support of Israel as the unofficial 51^st State in the union. President Obama has done this several times. On a side note, AIPAC did not invite presidential candidate Ron Paul who believes America’s foreign entanglements gets us into undeclared expensive wars. While Obama has not traveled to Israel since becoming president, he did travel to Israel as a presidential candidate in 2008 to assure the Israelis that if he became president, there would be no interruption of their annual billion dollar welfare payments from the American people.

A quick Internet search revealed that President Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush traveled to Israel twice making him only the second sitting President besides Jimmy Carter to visit the nation. 

Traveling to another country in no way amounts to foreign policy experience and why the President has a cabinet to staff with those with actual experience. Steve Holland should know this and why his article can be considered an absurd dig at the President.