After a series of embarrassing foreign policy gaffes, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain roared back last week that he has indeed become a foreign policy expert because he’s been “consulting with a number of experts to get up to speed.”

Today at the National Press Club, Cain expanded on how he plans to go about making foreign policy, and it’s the same approach he used to making pizzas when he took over as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza in the 1980s. In fact, Cain compared his initial ignorance about pizza as he took the helm of the company to his ignorance about U.S. foreign policy as he plans to become Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces:

I don’t believe that you need to have extensive foreign policy experience if you know how to make sure you’re working on the right problems, establishing the right priorities, surrounding yourself with good people, which will allow you to put together the plans necessary to solve the problem.

When I went to Godfather’s Pizza in 1986, the company was supposed to go bankrupt. I had never made a pizza, but I learned. And the way we renewed Godfather’s Pizza as a company is the same approach I will use to renew America. And that is if you want to solve a problem, go to the source closest to the problem and ask the right questions.

I talked with customers. I talked with young people that worked in the restaurant. I talked with managers, assistant managers, the office staff, franchisees, suppliers. And I asked them why is Godfather’s failing?

And after listening and distilling the feedback, it turned out that the reason that Godfather’s had gone from the darling of the restaurant industry when it began in the 1970s — in the 1980s rather — until now it was on a failing trajectory was that Godfather’s was trying to do too much with too little too fast. It had lost its focus.

That is what I believe is America’s problem. We’ve lost our focus. And in order to renew that focus we must address its most pressing problems boldly.

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Presumably, President Cain will be going around to foreign countries where the U.S. has all manner of dealings — being briefed, one hopes, on the names of various heads-of-state before going — and asking the ordinary people there whether or not U.S. foreign policy tastes good.

It seems for now, though, that despite Cain’s new professed expertise, he’s still just offering up platitudes and not engaging in how his potential presidency would actually affect the U.S. around the globe.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week yesterday, GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that Iran had threatened the U.S. with a nuclear attack, a proposition so discordant with the facts that ABC host Christiane Amanpour told the candidate that the claim wasn’t possible because Iranian officialdom has never acknowledged a nuclear weapons program. Here’s the exchange:

BACHMANN: Iran has also stated they would be willing to use a nuclear weapon against the United States of America. I think if there’s anything that we have learned over the course of history, it is that when a madman speaks, we should listen. And I think in the case of Iran, that is certainly true.

AMANPOUR: Congresswoman, of course the United States is concerned about the nuclear program. Iran denies that it has one, so it hasn’t threatened to use them.

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