On the heels of President Obama’s tough, well-received speech to AIPAC this past weekend, leading GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is out with a butch new op-ed that continues his self-reinvention as a foreign policy Chuck Norris. However, progressive SuperPAC American Bridge has released a web video to remind Americans that, just like his declaration that “any president” would have greenlit the Osama bin Laden raid, the Mitt Romney of 2007 clucked a different tune.

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Mitt Romney’s been talking tough on Iran lately, but check out this flashback to 2007 when he came under fire for saying the first thing he’d do is “sit down with [his] attorneys” when deciding on whether to order a military strike against Iran.

 During his presidential campaign in 2007, Republican candidate Mitt Romney promised that a trust overseeing his financial portfolio would shed any investments that conflicted with GOP positions toward Iran, China, stem cell research and other issues. But Romney’s family trusts kept some of those stocks and repeatedly bought new investments in similar holdings as recently as 2010, when they were sold in advance of his latest White House campaign, a detailed review of Romney’s financial records by The Associated Press shows.

Recently disclosed 2010 tax returns for three family trust funds for Romney, his wife, Ann, and their adult children show scores of trades in such investments, worth more than $3 million when the holdings were all sold in 2010.

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In 2007, as Romney prepared his first run for president, Malt sold stock in dozens of potentially controversial companies, including casino operators, tobacco growers, and firms with ties to Iran. Last year, after Romney pushed for tougher trade sanctions against China, Malt dumped a number of Chinese holdings. He recently shed a money market mutual fund that had invested in government-backed mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are blamed for exacerbating the housing bust.

In early 2010, as Romney advanced toward a second presidential campaign, Malt decided to close the $3 million UBS account he set up in Switzerland seven years earlier, realizing it could become a political issue. In 2009, the US government sued UBS to obtain the names of thousands of Americans who secretly held billions of dollars in Swiss accounts.

Malt said he opened the Swiss account not to hide assets, but to diversify Romney’s investments into foreign currencies.

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Five of the candidates who hope to be the Republican Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate sought the endorsement of a coalition of Michigan Tea Party groups Saturday by attacking the Federal Reserve, the United Nations, taxes and children of illegal immigrants.

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The United Nations came in for direct attacks from the Republicans. Accusing the international body of attempting to erode U.S. sovereignty, all five called for an end to U.S. participation.

Durant said it should be replaced with a privately funded organization to promote U.S. values to the rest of the world.

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All five called for major changes in taxes, either a flat tax or the so-called Fair Tax plan. That proposal would replace income taxes with a national consumption tax.

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Herman Cain became badly flustered on Monday when asked to assess President Obama’s policy toward Libya, raising new questions about his command of foreign policy as he lurched over five minutes from awkward pauses to halting efforts to address the issue.

Video of Mr. Cain’s appearance on Monday before editors and reporters at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went viral almost immediately after it was posted online, and drew immediate comparisons to Rick Perry’s recent stumble in a debate when he froze in discussing which federal agencies he would eliminate…

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“After the Senate approved Sen. Sherrod Brown’s bill aimed at punishing China for its export policy to the United States, a reporter asked Brown’s likely opponent, Republican Josh Mandel, how he would have voted on the bill.

A Mandel spokesman answered this way: “Try as he might, it’s too late for Sherrod Brown to hide from his record of outsourcing Ohio jobs to countries like China. During Sherrod Brown’s past decade as a D.C. politician, one out of every four jobs that has left America left from Ohio.”

There was a bit more, but you get the idea. Nowhere did the spokesman provide the slightest clue as to where Mandel stood on an issue that has a lot of traction in Ohio.

That is the way Mandel has been campaigning for next year’s U.S. Senate race. He can raise gobs of money. He campaigns with energy. But ask for a comment on a particular bill before Congress and all you get is another attack on Sherrod Brown.

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 U.S. Senate hopeful Shelley Berkley could have a winning issue on her hands by continuing to pound China over its currency manipulation, according to her advisers based on their polling.

A memo to Berkley from pollster Mark Mellman provides an answer to why the Las Vegas Democratic congresswoman has been all over the issue this week as a China bill is being debated in the Senate.

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