Last month, the Republican National Convention featured speeches from two of the GOP’s biggest names in foreign policy — John McCain and Condoleezza Rice — endorsing Romney’s foreign policy credentials. This week, with Romney struggling to defend his response to a crisis abroad, both have gone silent on his handling of the episode.
McCain and Rice’s speeches were the only two standout examples in Tampa of prominent Republicans addressing Romney’s credentials as commander-in-chief at length. Almost the entire rest of the convention schedule focused on either economic issues or familiarizing Americans with Romney’s biography.
“It is said that this election will turn on domestic and economic issues,” McCain said in his speech. “But what Mitt Romney knows, and what we know, is the success at home also depends on our leadership in the world.”
Rice, who had mostly avoided partisan politics since Obama took office, delivered a standout performance endorsing Romney in Tampa.
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have the integrity and the experience and the vision to lead us,” she said in her speech.
Like many Republican leaders, Rice and McCain have since stayed silent about Romney’s Libya response, including his inaccurate claim that the Obama administration’s “first response” to attacks on diplomatic compounds in Libya and Egypt was “to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
While some foreign policy hawks from the Bush era have vocally defended Romney’s actions, McCain and Rice are easily the two most prominent and widely respected voices in the party on these issues. A nod of support from either could go a long way.
In her only response to the Libya killings, Rice avoided critiquing the administration at all. Instead she mourned the loss of “legendary” Ambassador Christoper Stevens and other diplomats killed in a statement on Wednesday.
McCain was much more vocal about the attacks, but he scrupulously avoided weighing in on Romney’s response. On Wednesday, he released a statement with fellow Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) — all three are considered some of the Senate’s most hawkish members — on the events in Libya that refrained from criticizing the White House. He also praised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks as “excellent and moving” on Twitter.
When McCain finally did take questions about Romney’s response on Thursday morning, he downplayed its importance and carefully avoided making any explicit judgement either way as to its merits.
“The whole tick-tock back and forth is not something I’m totally aware of or care much about in light of the loss of Chris Stevens and three other Americans,” McCain said in an appearance on CNN. He declined to offer advice to Romney on his Libya response, joking that no one wants to hear from “a loser.”
Later on MSNBC, McCain suggested it’s fair to broadly go after Obama’s “lack of leadership” in foreign policy, but again avoided any discussion of Romney’s own response.
“It’s in the heat of the battle, you get all kinds of advice and you get all kinds of second-guessing. ” McCain said in a separate MSNBC interview. “I’m not prepared to do that.”
