Many people in the press and in the Democratic Party (to the extent that they are not one and the same) are so overwhelmed by Paul Ryan’s credentials on domestic economic issues that they have falsely stated that he is weak on foreign policy issues. He may indeed be weaker on foreign policy issues than on domestic economic issues, but he is still far stronger on foreign policy issues than most presidential candidates in recent decades, let alone vice-presidential candidates.
No fewer than 4 out of the 5 presidents of the United States immediately prior to Barack Obama’s election were governors, who had no experience in foreign affairs comparable to the experience acquired by U.S. Representative Ryan in 7 terms in the United States Congress, in which he prepared for and voted on issues of foreign affairs for nearly a decade and a half. The fact that a high percentage of the bills Ryan sponsored or co-sponsored did not become law is not a negative reflection about him or his principles but rather about the Congress that consistently scores a lower rating in the eyes of the American public than virtually every other major public body or leading politician. He did in fact sponsor 8 bills and co-sponsor 74 bills during this period, including multiple bills on Israel, and bills dealing with Iraq, Iran, Japan, Armenia, the United Nations, and the United States military, including the rights of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, was missing in inaction in a civilian capacity when it came to foreign affairs, since his resume prior to serving on the U.S. Senate was as a community organizer that did not even take him out of Chicago before becoming a Senator for much less than a single term before focusing on a run for the U.S. Presidency. So Obama clearly had far less experience in foreign affairs when running for U.S. President than Paul Ryan has as he begins to run for vice president.
Incidentally, of the 5 presidents prior to President Obama, the only one who was not a governor was George Bush 41, who had served in the Navy, became the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the U.S. Liaison in Beijing (then Peking), and the Director of the CIA before serving 8 years as vice president. So it is clear that Obama had less experience even in state-wide affairs than the four governors, and far less experience in foreign affairs than the single U.S. president of the 5 who served before him who had not served as a governor.
One wonders how much experience President Obama is getting in foreign affairs even while serving as president. He has already attended more than 163 re-election fundraisers for his campaign and the Democratic Party, almost double the number that George W. Bush attended in his entire first term (86) and more than any other president in history. In the first 12 days of June, Obama attended no fewer than 21 fundraising events, while he did not conduct a single cabinet meeting from January 31, 2012 until July 26th! He was so busy fundraising for himself – not to mention his commitments playing golf and basketball -- that he had no time to make a single personal appearance in the recent highly publicized recall election in Wisconsin, the home state of Paul Ryan.
When Representative Ryan left his home state to go to Washington, he did not just cast votes in favor of our allies while Obama insulted the British (publicly and humiliatingly returning the bust of Churchill that had been in the oval office) and the Israelis (in multiple ways that can – and have – filled complete articles), among others. Ryan was also specifically praised by Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, as “very supportive” of the Jewish state. Ryan has rejected the Obama administration's tactic of pressuring Israel to make concessions its leaders believe will undermine its security, and, unlike Obama and Carter, Ryan insists on the not exactly epiphanic principle that “a rejection of violence and incitement on the Palestinian side is an essential precondition for a meaningful peace agreement."
Perhaps more importantly than anything else, Ryan’s powerful and principled positions on fixing the economy that Obama has further broken, raising employment levels that Obama’s policies have lowered, and reducing the highly inflated debts which Obama has incurred to our detriment and that of our descendants (the debt incurred during Obama’s watch has ballooned virtually as much as it had during the administrations of all previous U.S. presidents combined) bode well for restoring the United States to the position of strength it had before Obama came to office, so that the United States can lead the free world once again in foreign affairs with the respect and military power (and funding for such power) that it had before Obama began his policy of befriending our enemies and weakening our allies abroad and our own economy at home.
Aaron Reichel is a New York attorney whose writings have been widely published and republished, some in the U.S. Congressional Record. His most notable book remains Fahrenheit 9-12 – Rebuttal to Fahrenheit 9/11.
