Romney economic adviser campaigns for Mitt's economic policies in Germany

We've all heard a million times that politics is supposed to end at the water's edge'politicians are supposed to fight things out at home but not take partisan politics abroad. But although it's a political norm rising to the level of cliche, apparently Mitt Romney and his advisers are going to go ahead and campaign against President Obama where, when, and how they like, longstanding etiquette be damned. R. Glenn Hubbard, one of Romney's senior economic advisers, has written an op-ed in a top German newspaper explicitly taking aim at Obama's economic policies in the context of European austerity.

Some of the Obama administration's "recommendations are not only unwise," he wrote, "they also reveal ignorance of the causes of the crisis and of a growth trend in the future." By contrast, says Romney adviser Hubbard, "Mitt Romney, Obama's Republican opponent, understands this very well and advises a gradual fiscal consolidation for the U.S.: structural reform to stimulate growth." So that's a newsflash: The guy advising Romney on economic policy thinks Romney's economic policy is good.

"In a foreign news outlet, Governor Romney's top economic adviser both discouraged essential steps that need to be taken to promote economic recovery and attempted to undermine America's foreign policy abroad," said Ben LaBolt, press secretary for the president's re-election campaign.

Steve Benen points out that this is not the first time Romney or his campaign has violated the notion that politics should stop at the water's edge; in March, "the Republican condemned President Obama while the president was representing the U.S. overseas (a move that even drew a rebuke from House Speaker John Boehner)."

Also, it almost goes without saying that the policies Hubbard is advocating are economically disastrous.