President Obama announced today at Ft. Stewart in Georgia that he will sign an executive order to protect veterans, members of the military and their families from deceptive and predatory marketing practices by some for-profit higher educational institutions.

Mitt Romney’s campaign tried to get out front of the news today by issuing press releases suggesting that the president hasn’t done enough for the nation’s veterans. Campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul said:

“Under President Obama, all Americans have suffered from one of the worst job markets in recorded history — and our nation’s veterans have been among the hardest hit. With more than twelve percent of our most recent veterans struggling to find work and nearly a million veterans unemployed, it’s clear that we need to do more to grow our economy and ensure that those who fight for America can find a job when they return home.”

Saul didn’t expand on the “do more” part of her critique. The other press release titled “Mitt Romney Will Give Veterans A Chance to Find Good Jobs” links to a page on the campaign website that makes no mention of any plan for veterans.

And it appears that no plan exists on Romney’s campaign website to address various issues affecting the U.S. military — for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or, as Obama addressed today, servicemembers’ education. The “Issues” page lists 23 separate issues Mitt Romney has apparently chosen to focus on during his presidential campaign and none is “Veterans” or “Military.”

It seems like the only outline of any plan Romney has for veterans is to, as he said in a speech to the VFW last August, use “billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency and bureaucracy from the defense budget” and “spend it to ensure that veterans have the care they deserve.” He mentioned no specifics.

Romney announced a Veterans Policy Advisory group back in October to “help to formulate policies that will ensure America keeps its commitments” to veterans but it is unclear what those policies are.

Romney has even praised President Obama’s veterans initiative to encourage companies to hire veterans, saying last November that “it’s a good idea.”

On Veterans Day last year, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee did float a plan to privatize the veterans health care system but he was forced to back away from the proposal after swift condemnation from veterans groups.

Romney has also said he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal. That budget “would cut $11 billion from veterans spending.”

ThinkProgress asked the Romney campaign if the former Massachusetts governor has a detailed plan to address veterans issues but it did not respond before this post was published.

On the substance, it doesn’t seem like the Romney campaign has been paying much attention to what the Obama has been doing. CAP’s Lawrence Korb and Alex Rothman noted in February that “President Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment” while urging Congress to pass the president’s $6 billion vets jobs corps program. Last month, Obama announced a housing plan to help military vets who were victims of illegal foreclosures and First Lady Michelle Obama said earlier this month that companies had pledged 15,000 jobs for military spouses as part of the administration’s “Joining Forces” program.

Despite progress, there is more to be done. The unemployment rate for veterans was at 7.5 percent in March. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan war vets during the same month stood at 10.3 percent, “slightly better than in March 2011.”

Vice President Joe Biden’s speech critiquing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy positions has received a range of responses. Dan Senor, a Romney adviser who served as the spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, commented that Biden offered a “fantasy narrative” of President Obama’s accomplishments. Another Romney foreign policy adviser, Pierre Prosper, charged that, under the Obama administration, “The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia” — of which the latter dissolved nearly 20 years ago after the fall of the U.S.S.R.

But the strangest criticism came from former U.N. ambassador John Bolton who claimed that a laugh-line in Biden’s speech showed that New York University (NYU) students, where the speech was delivered, don’t believe the president is strong on foreign policy. Bolton explained to Fox News’ Greta Van Sustern:

BOLTON: But I thought the best part of it was at one point, trying to appropriate yet another Republican president, Biden said, ‘you have to speak softly and carry a big stick.’ And then he said, ‘I promise you, President Obama has a big stick.’ And the audience broke out laughing, which is some measure of their belief about how assertive Obama is on behalf of our interests internationally.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes, it’s — apparently, that’s also going to — that’s made a couple — a lot of — a lot of jokes, too, on the Internet. It is — apparently, that is something that’s not going to go away, at least for a while, for Vice President Biden, that remark.

BOLTON: Yet another one.

Watch it:

It’s unclear if the NYU audience was laughing at, or with, Biden. The Vice President maintained a dead-pan expression during the brief outbreak of laughter.

Indeed, Van Susteren is correct that the “big stick” comment has generated a great deal of attention, although not all of it negative, on the internet. CBS, ABC, NBC and The Huffington Post all published articles with headlines incorporating the statement “Obama ‘has a big stick,’” in the minutes and hours after the speech was delivered.

The fact that Bolton interpreted the laughter as a critical response to the administration’s foreign policy doctrine is bizarre considering the former U.N. ambassador’s penchant for bellicose rhetoric when describing his domination-focused foreign policy positions. Last summer, Bolton opined that the U.S. “should be squeezing and disciplining Moscow, not caressing it.”