Romney's Really Silly Israeli Melee

TPM's Paul Werdel has an interesting theory on the latest Republican poutrage involving White House spokeman Jay Carney and Israel:

The Romney campaign had at time of writing on Friday sent out two separate e-mail press releases chiding the Obama administration for its “refusal to say whether Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”
One quoted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and another, former Minnesota Senator and Romney surrogate Norm Coleman.

Now it’s worth noting this was long the easy rhetoric of some of the less serious contenders throughout the GOP primary. But coming from Romney, the party’s nominee-to-be, it would signal something far more significant.

I suppose it’s possible the Romney campaign is so unaware of the realities of the Middle East peace process, however moribund it may be, that they’re unconcerned with just how inflammatory an American president’s expression of support for an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would be to the Arab world. But even with the stumbles Mitt Romney has made this week on the international stage, that seems unlikely.

So, accepting that Romney is aware of the significance, it seems likely he’s prepared to signal a very real, very controversial departure from decades of U.S. peacemaking policy, and put the weight of his potential presidency behind a declaration that he believes Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. That would be a very big deal. 

I'm going to go with Occam's Razor here and say that given the evidence of the last month and especially the last week, the Romney campaign is staffed by foreign policy morons and/or cynics who will simply assume that FOX viewers don't know any better, so it's completely fine for them to say "Carney won't admit that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel! LOL!  OBAMA IS SO STUPID!" and they'll get away with it.  I'm leaning towards the latter, but the former cannot be completely discounted, either.

Werdel has some serious journalism chops coming to TPM from Al Jazeera English and BBC News and I'm glad to see such a blindingly qualified hire for Josh Marshall, but I'm going to respectfully volunteer that he has a bit to learn about how "journalism" in the United States works, especially when it comes to Republicans manipulating their base with voltage spikes to the lizard brain.  The average American will tell you of course Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and won't think twice about Tel Aviv, Haifa, or any other city in the country, completely unaware of the nuance or the internationally disputed status of the city.

I suppose the Romney campaign could be fronting Jerusalem as Israel's capital as a major US policy shift, but I would count that as the least likely.