According to The Washington Post, Wisconsin Gov. and GOP Presidential hopeful Scott Walker has taken a two-hour 'crash course' in foreign affairs, sort of a Dummies Guide To Places That Aren't Wisconsin. Walker, the wholly-owned Koch Industries subsidiary, was mocked after his recent adventure abroad. As The WaPo puts it:
On a recent Monday at Washington’s Willard InterContinental hotel, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was schooled on the world by some of the GOP’s leading foreign-policy lights...
The reason for Walker’s crash course was urgent: He has not impressed many leading Republicans with his grasp of foreign affairs. He drew mockery from members of both parties last month for refusing to talk about foreign policy on a trip to London and then for comparing his experience battling labor protesters to taking on Islamic State terrorists.
So far, so predictable: all 'serious' Presidential candidates are obliged to at least pretend to grasp (and have 'solutions' for) foreign policy issues because, let's face it: those danged foreigners are always up to some kind of mischief, the rascals.
Who can forget the sight of serial sex-pest, pizza maven and GOP contender Herman Cain grappling with that 'foreign policy' stuff? Happily for the people of Uzbeckybeckystanstan, Cain never made it to The White House. And neither, of course, will Scott Walker. But he's going to give it the old college (drop-out) try.
And who is he turning to in his hour of need?
“I can pretty well guarantee you that he is not a subscriber to Foreign Affairs,” said Elliott Abrams, a prominent neoconservative who was among those briefing Walker at the Willard.
Jumping Jesus on a biscuit...Elliot Abrams?
This guy?
During investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair, Lawrence Walsh, the Independent Counsel tasked with investigating the case, prepared multiple felony counts against Abrams but never indicted him. Instead, Abrams cooperated with Walsh and entered into a plea agreement wherein he pled guilty to two misdemeanors of withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced to a $50 fine, probation for two years, and 100 hours of community service. However, Abrams was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, in December 1992 (as he was leaving office following his loss in that year in the U.S. presidential election). On February 5, 1997, the D.C. Court of Appeals publicly censured Abrams for giving false testimony on three occasions before congressional committees. Although a majority of the court voted to impose a public censure, three judges in the majority would have imposed a suspension of six months, and a fourth judge would have followed the recommendation of the Board on Professional Responsibility that Abrams be suspended for a year. -- wikipedia
Are you fucking
kidding me? That's just
great...but to be expected from an oily grifter like Walker. Still, I don't suppose it matters a hell of a lot, even in the unlikely event that Walker wins the GOP nomination (and he's favored by the WaPo's Jennifer 'Kiss of Death' Rubin); he'll go no further than The MittBot 2.0 (another Rubin Kiss of Death winner) and mainly (in my opinion) for the same reason: he's deeply unlikable. And the more exposed he becomes nationally, the less likable he's going to become.
At last weekend’s Club for Growth meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., Walker told potential donors that “foreign policy is something that’s not just about having a PhD or talking to PhDs. It’s about leadership.”
Yeah, sure, Scotty...keep slinging the buzzwords; 'leadership'? Swell idea. With any luck, you can lead that herd of Gadarene swine you call a 'political party' right over a cliff. But it's not all ignorance, jargon and platitudes:
As governor, in 2013, Walker led a trade mission to China, where he secured an exclusive deal with a large Chinese medicine company to sell Wisconsin-grown ginseng in its retail stores.
Well, I guess he's got the Wisconsin ginseng growers vote sewn-up. The rest of America? Not so much. Thank God.