Why would Mitt Romney be a better president than Barack Obama when it comes to relations between the United States and the U.K.? According to one Romney adviser, the former Massachusetts governor would better respect the two countries’ “Anglo-Saxon heritage.”
Part of an interview with the Telegraph newspaper during the GOP candidate’s first major international foreign policy tour, the comments are raising eyebrows because of their hint at drawing a distinction between Romney and Obama over race. The suggestion is that, since president Obama’s heritage lies in Africa instead of one of the Germanic Caucasian tribes that settled Britain and other parts of Europe, he doesn’t fully understand what the adviser called the “special” relationship between the two countries.
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The advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to insult a sitting president in the foreign press, also said Obama was “comfortable with American decline.” President Obama, for his part, has suggested that his opponent is at best a foreign-policy novice. He may have a point—at least when it comes to Romney’s advisers.
Video by Paca Thomas.
