The Mitt Romney pre-convention sell-out of Ron Paul continues

Countering several days of posturing by President Obama, VP Biden, and especially SecDef Leon Panetta about the current administration's apparently unending appetite for larger military budgets and new wars to fight, Mitt Romney strikes back:

Contrary to what the MSM would
have you believe, Mitt Romney's
Memorial Day speech was directed
as much against Ron Paul as
against Barack Obama.

"We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs," Romney said outside the city's Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. "The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world."

Now let's parse this a little bit.

Romney is clearly going after the veterans' vote--even though why veterans would want to support yet another warhawk who missed his own chance to serve is a mystery to me.

Yet why now?

The answer is pretty simple:  Mitt Romney needs to position himself in the lead as America's number one advocate of increased military spending and interventionism, and Ron Paul as a dangerous foreign policy dreamer, before the Tampa GOP convention.

He's been heading that way since he sent John Bolton out to ramp up war fever against Iran.

Romney's strategy, I venture to suggest, is to present the GOP convention with exactly the same take on Ron Paul at the convention as Libertarian Republican publisher Eric Dondero consistently reiterates.  Consider this from Dondero:

Ron Paul is wholly correct when it comes to domestic policy. His often politically incorrect calls for slicing and dashing government programs and departments is laudable, and should be supported by all libertarian Republicans. 

But his foreign policy views, in face of the greatest danger this Nation has faced since Hitler and the Nazis, amounts to nothing less than straight out appeasement. 

You would think we learned our lesson of hiding one's head in the sand, and cowering from threats overseas.

Now take a look at what Mitt Romney said on Memorial Day:

In a written statement Sunday, Romney said Obama "can no longer ignore calls from congressional leaders in both parties to take more assertive steps in Syria." Romney said the current approach has only given Syrian leaders more time to crackdown on protesters.

World leaders blame the Syrian government for the weekend killing of more than 100 people, including 49 children, following peaceful protests.

"I wish I could tell you that the world is a safe place today. It is not," Romney said Monday, ticking off a list of threats including Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Venezuela and Mexican drug cartels. He did not mention Syria.

Romney said America's military might is needed "not so that we just win wars, but so we can prevent wars."

"A strong America is the best deterrent to war that has ever been invented," he said.

 What Romney has done here is present the same scenario as Dondero (except in the present day), and deftly substituted the concept of deterrence (in a positive context) for appeasement (in Dondero's negative context).

Romney is preparing not only to make the case that Romney=Deterrent Power, Obama=Appeasement Vulnerability, but also that--on foreign policy--Paul=Obama.

In fact, if pressed, it is predictable that Romney will eventually characterize Dr. Paul as being worse on defense and foreign policy than President Obama, and therefore unelectable.

Then he will offer Ron Paul supporters a place at the table on economic issues, but only if they are willing to give up non-interventionism.

I don't think Campaign for Liberty folks have so little integrity that they are willing to accept this Faustian bargain.