The mismanagement of the Iraq occupation, piled on top of the W.M.D. fiasco, cost Bush's party its reputation for foreign policy competence, while the Bush boom, such as it was, delivered weaker returns to the middle class than either the Reagan or the Clinton expansion — and then the financial crisis undid even those meager gains.
Therefore, even if the E.U. did act as a stabilizing force, structural "disease" and policy competence mattered significantly.
The report noted "the complicated web of different sources of EU foreign policy competence", scope for "disagreements over interpretation" and "tensions among member states and the EU institutions".
While I have largely dismissed the foreign policy competence and coherence of Mitt Romney's strategic vision in the past, I'm seeing Romney up his game in a few hires he has made. .
Certain actors, such as nursing educators and unions, appear to have some policy competence, but are unable to overcome the weaknesses within the SANC and the NDoH, who bear ultimate responsibility for nursing policy development and implementation.
Although his foreign-policy positions may actually reflect the views of many Germans, Westerwelle has squandered the reputation for foreign-policy competence that the Free Democrats have had since the 1970s, when Hans-Dietrich Genscher was foreign minister.
He can cite a growing number of non-partisan eminent economists who say that the current deficit-reduction strategy isn't working – evidenced in falling wages, rising living costs, low growth and an accelerating race to the deregulatory bottom, but does he have the policy content, competence and credibility to convey a narrative that convinces?
So when a President-in-waiting uses a tweet or a drive-by cable-television moment to casually kiss off the excruciatingly difficult history of nuclear strategy and international treaties, it raises questions that go beyond policy to competence, and to rationality.
But doubts have existed from the start about his policy-making competence.
As for Mondale, he never managed to convince the comics that his stiffness was a metaphor for policy-driven competence.
