The skirmish is the latest flare-up in a running battle between the former CIA officer, Michael Scheuer, and the Romney aide, Gabriel Schoenfeld — and one that reflects deeper rifts over foreign policy on the right. Schoenfeld is part of a contingent of hawkish neoconservative thinkers around Romney; while Scheuer is a vocal critic of the interventionism championed by George W. Bush.

Schoenfeld has been campaigning against Scheuer at least since 2007, when he accused him of anti-Semitism and "nuttiness," and urged the mainstream and conservative media to stop relying on him as an expert source. Scheuer, for his part, has dismissed Schoenfeld as a “reliable Israel-firster" bent on entangling the U.S. in the Middle East on Israel's account.

The feud bubbled back up last week when Scheuer — in emails to the campaign, shared with this reporter — accused Schoenfeld of orchestrating an aggressive campaign to "defame" and discredit him, by convincing his employers that he's an anti-Semite.

Romney has surrounded himself with the Bush reprobates that were instrumental in all the failed policies that have brought us to the need to reject the same and continue what has gotten us out of their abyss.