As Republican nominee Mitt Romney lays out more foreign policy ideas in a speech Monday at the Virginia Military Institute, the Obama campaign was in attack mode almost 24 hours before that address, giving Romney the back of the hand as President Obama flew to California for two days of campaign fund raising events.

Here is the exchange with reporters from Air Force One involving Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki:   

     Q    Jen, Governor Romney is going to give a big foreign policy speech tomorrow.  Can you talk about what your view is on the timing of his speech and also how the President and the campaign plans to counter that, given that he’s likely to talk about Iran and Syria and Libya, some things that are in the news?

     MS. PSAKI:  So, one, we’re not going to be lectured by someone who has been an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy every time he’s dipped his toe in the foreign policy waters.  Just as a refresher, this is the same guy who, when he went overseas on his trip, the only person who has offended Europe more is probably Chevy Chase.  And that was a trip that was built up.

     Second is when he had the opportunity to speak directly to the American people about his plans on domestic and foreign policy issues, as we all remember, he didn’t bring up Afghanistan, he didn’t bring up the troops.  He has been abundantly clear that he would not have gone after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan; has failed to lay out his exact differences on Iran, as much as he said he has an entirely different position from the President.

     So we’re certainly interested in what he has to say, but this is his fourth or fifth retake at trying to lay out his foreign policy positions for the American people.  And at this point, it’s a very high bar he would have to jump over to convince them he’s prepared to be Commander-in-Chief and to address all of the foreign policy challenges you’ve mentioned that we’re facing.

     Q    So how do you plan to counter it?  I mean, with the campaign, or will the President speak to that himself?  I mean, one of the things he’s likely to talk about are a lot of the questions surrounding the administration’s handling of the Libya attack on 9/11.

     MS. PSAKI:  I don’t want to get too -- we don’t know what’s in his speech yet, so I’m sure that we will have a substantive response from the campaign.  But we’ll see what he has to say, and we’ll respond accordingly.