Biden: Team Romney's effort to stick a wedge between U.S. and U.K. 'beneath a presidential campaign'

(Caricature by donkeyhotey) Vice President Joe Biden has been regularly blasting the Mitt Romney campaign for its foreign policy statements. He had some serrated remarks about the Republican candidate's hollow, boilerplate speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Reno Tuesday. Today, he's responded to a report in The Telegraph that has created quite a stir for remarks allegedly made by a Romney adviser:

Despite his promises that politics stops at the water's edge, Governor Romney's wheels hadn't even touched down in London before his advisors were reportedly playing politics with international diplomacy, attempting to create daylight between the United States and the United Kingdom where none exists. Our special relationship with the British is stronger than ever and we are proud to work hand-in-hand with Prime Minister Cameron to confront every major national security challenge we face today.  On every major issue'from Afghanistan to missile defense, from the fight against international terrorism to our success in isolating countries like Iran whose nuclear programs threaten peace and stability'we've never been more in sync. The comments reported this morning are a disturbing start to a trip designed to demonstrate Governor Romney's readiness to represent the United States on the world's stage. Not surprisingly, this is just another feeble attempt by the Romney campaign to score political points at the expense of this critical partnership. This assertion is beneath a presidential campaign.

The vice president is wrong. No assertion is apparently beneath the Romney campaign. The trip to London is barely under way, and we've still got Warsaw and Jerusalem to go. Biden is going to be pretty busy.

In his point-by-point rebuttal of Romney's VFW speech, Biden said, among other things:

Governor Romney continues his long litany of untruths about our administration's policies toward Israel. We've provided record levels of security assistance, funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system that intercepted nearly 80 percent of the rockets recently fired from Gaza, close collaboration on longer range missile defense systems, the largest joint military exercises in history, the most consistent and comprehensive exchanges ever between our top political, defense, security and intelligence officials. And, contrary to Governor Romney's outrageous accusation that the President joined in the chorus of insults levied against Israel at the United Nations, President Obama has stood up repeatedly, publicly and often alone against efforts to delegitimize Israel at the U.N. and around the world. [...]

On Iran, Governor Romney does a compelling job laying out exactly what the Administration is already doing. The only step he seems to think we should take that we are not already taking is to launch a war. If that is what the Governor is for, he should tell the American people.

Team Romney's objective has been to paint President Obama as hopelessly gullible and out-of-touch when it comes to foreign policy. But other than promising to spend up to $2.2 trillion extra on defense over the next decade, talking a little tougher at the behest of John Bolton and Dick Cheney, pounding on the we're-No. 1-Democrats-are-weak theme and talking about "an American century," the presumptive nominee has proved he has absolutely nothing to say about foreign policy that relates to the 21st Century.

All he has is divisiveness founded on racism, ignorance and a hoary jingoism that he'd like to make sound as if it is coming from Ronald Reagan's mouth. Given his campaign's mentions of the Soviet Union, you almost expect him to start talking about tearing down some walls.