In speech, Biden rips Romney on foreign policy

Vice President Joe Biden delivered a harsh attack yesterday on Mitt Romney's foreign policy views, arguing that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is rooted in a Cold War mentality and is uninformed about the current challenges facing the United States abroad.

In a campaign speech at New York University Law School, Biden laid out a robust defense of President Barack Obama's foreign policy record while eviscerating Romney for lacking vision and "distorting" Obama's record in a way that has been counterproductive to U.S. interests.

"If you're looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it's pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive," Biden said, saying Obama's decisions on both foreign and domestic policy had made the United States safer.

Biden cast the former Massachusetts governor as an inexperienced foreign policy thinker who would delegate decisions to staff and advisers. He also hit Romney on his reputation for flip-flopping on issues.

"We know when the governor does venture a position it's a safe bet that he previously took or will take an exactly opposite position," Biden said, noting that Romney had originally supported setting a time frame for pulling U.S. troops from Afghanistan only to criticize later Obama's plan to do so by the end of 2014.

Biden repeatedly used Romney's own words against him, such as when, during Romney's 2008 presidential bid, the Republican downplayed the significance of capturing Osama bin Laden, and more recently when Romney said Russia was the United States' gravest geopolitical foe. "As my brother would say, 'Go figure,' " Biden said to laughs.

In response, Romney adviser John Lehman accused the president of a "gross abdication of leadership" that could have practical and political consequences.

"Why is the United States under Obama abdicating its leadership for keeping stability in the world?" asked Lehman, Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, during a conference call Romney's campaign arranged with reporters before Biden spoke. "This is a serious crisis and perhaps could be the central issue in the campaign."