Romney's Seven Year Itch

Mitt Romney thinks that "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up." The Washington Post just reports on this straight making no note of the fact that it's ridiculously false. Mark Kleiman remarks:

As embarrassed as Romney should be, the Washington Post should be more embarrassed. Doesn't saying something checkably — and hilariously — false count as gaffe? And shouldn't Romney now be asked to explain his remark? If the Post won't do it, everyone else should.

Kleiman's obviously forgotten the central fact here: It's not a gaffe because Romney's a Republican. Recall that this isn't the first time Romney's been shown with weird ideas about France -- a country where he's actually lived.

Comments

Poor Romney was evidently completely taken in by his French girlfriend, who told him that they could get married, and it wouldn't count after 7 years . . .

Posted by rea | May 8, 2007 8:06 AM

I think the media is developing a policy of ignoring stuff like this on the grounds that bloggers will catch for them and later they can run with it.

Confusing a country you lived in and a science fiction novel is certainly the type of thing Ronald Reagan did, so perhaps there is a strategy behind this.

Posted by ChrisB | May 8, 2007 8:54 AM

Romney has a free pass because of the "I'm told" phrasing. See also: "I don't recall", "some say", etc.

Posted by krat | May 8, 2007 9:48 AM

a country where he's actually lived.

Yes but he lived there as a LDS missionary. French people often have a well developed sense of humour IME.

Posted by chris y | May 8, 2007 9:53 AM

Well, it is weird, but in what you hear from the us about france these days, weirdness abounds.

There was that theory of the ressentiment of the french towards the US, explaining France's opposition to the war in Iraq. There were these re-interpretation of the riots in 2005 as "muslim riots". These two on the top of my head, there are a few more.

If you seriously argue these points in France, or with someone who knows the country, you'll get a blank stare and a reputation to be a loon.

Same, but not more, with the 7 year thing : it's rather standard-fare weird compared to the rest ; I'm surprised people think it sticks out.

Posted by yabonn | May 8, 2007 12:20 PM

The seven year marriage thing is a plot point in a science fiction novel by mormon Andrew Scott Card:

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/05/the_seven_year_which.html

Posted by joeo | May 8, 2007 1:19 PM

The funny thing about mormons in France is that the Harrison Ford movie "witness" was mistranslated with the amish being called mormons. This has lead to a lot of misunderstanding of mormons in France.

Posted by joeo | May 8, 2007 1:24 PM

I'm with Joeo that it's a case Willard ("Mitt") Romney, that fan of "Battlefield Earth", confusing inferior science fiction with reality (or, at least, with France).

I'm not sure that I agree with Joeo's suggestion that Orson Scott Card is to blame (just because they're both Mormon?); I think it might come from the later work of Heinlein, who (like Orson Scott Card) initially wrote some fairly good science fiction before he went crazy.

Posted by Warren Terra | May 8, 2007 1:35 PM

I guess someone has to say it -

I think Romney was not being serious.

There, someone said it.

That having been said, The Washington Post has no excuse for reporting it straight. If Romney was kidding, the Post should indicate that, and if he wasn't, they should take him to task.

Posted by LaurenceB | May 8, 2007 1:53 PM

Amusingly, Romney is now getting grief from fundie types because he wasn't one of the hand-raisers for creationism at the GOP debate. Apparently, that's one of the weird beliefs that may disqualify him from the Jebus vote: the LDS is officially neutral on evolution.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 8, 2007 3:52 PM

Does anyone else see this as a purposeful ploy? He's trying to establish himself as a knuckledragger. Bashing France with accusations of depraved perversion and secular cosmopolitanism is a time honored custom among them. He's trying to show that he knows France sucks and damn the facts.

Though, ironically enough, the facts are of big importance in the appeal of his making this gaffe. By very virtue of their outlandishness and falseness, he picks up favorable attention in the Republican primaries. If they accidentally happened to have a grain of truth to them, he would show himself to be a bit too worldly, even if he were still bashing France. So, he's positively awarded for astutely constructing a reality that purposely clashes with our own.

Posted by Zephyrus | May 8, 2007 5:23 PM