In the third presidential debate, Mitt Romney was all over the map without knowing much about the map. “Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world,” Romney said. “It’s their route to the sea.” According to the map, Iran doesn’t need a route through another country to get to the sea. It has 1,500 miles of coastline.

Elsewhere on the map, Romney said Russia was our worst geopolitical foe, 20 years after the end of the Cold War. He thinks we were right to invade Iraq, and we should have left “10,000, 20,000, or 30,000” troops there when we pulled out.

About Afghanistan, Romney first said we shouldn’t have a timeline for getting out. Then he said we should. Then he said maybe we should.

“As commander in chief,” President Obama told him, “you’ve got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean.”

Romney is incoherent about domestic policy too.

He says he loves American cars, but he opposed Obama’s bailout of the auto industry. Romney says his op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” meant he wanted to destroy the industry to save it.

He promises a $5 trillion tax cut, paid for by closing phantom loopholes that change from speech to speech, which he and Congress will locate together after the election.

He says he supports abortion for rape victims, but as governor of Massachusetts he vetoed a bill requiring hospitals to offer them emergency contraception; and he continued running ads supporting Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock after Mourdock said pregnancy from rape “is something that God intended to happen.”

How can Romney, who claims to value women, endorse a man who would force a woman to bear her rapist’s child in the name of God?

Ann Adams

Oak Harbor