Romney on Airliner Windows

[Joe]

Commenting on the electrical fire on his wife's flight of last Friday:

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she [wife Ann] was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound."

Whoa.

[Tom Goodrick]

Yes. Any comment I would make would be construed by some as a political remark. So I won't say what a dumb nincompoop he is.

[Allan_Lowson]

If he bought her a Stearman, problem solved. Might mess up the assuredly expensive hairdo though.

Come to think of it, if it was obligatory that all politicians worldwide had to make their speechs from the cockpit of Stearmans, preferably several thousand feet up, we would not have to listen to their pontificating. It would also take them longer to get round whistle stop tours, thus annoying fewer citizens trying to get on with their lives.

But then, where would comedians get their material from?

This side of the pond we just get low budget clowns on bicycles insulting the police who look after them.

[flaminghotsauce]

It is very sad that our media today failed Sarcasm 101 and Introduction to Humor. The guy makes a joke, and the media show what idiots they are.

[Allan_Lowson]

That's the problem with politicians and humour. It rarely works unless it is unintentional, particularly in as combative an atmosphere as an election run-up.

[Tom Goodrick]

If that was a joke, it was a very strange one. I don't think the guy knows what he's talking about.

I watched the whole sequence as he talking about his wife's dangerous encounter. It certainly was serious enough not to be a joking matter. She didn't act like she thought he was joking. Joe's quote above shows clearly Romney was not trying to make a joke.

[Joe]

Maybe he was joking, but even if he was:

1) on the heels of the 47% video, this guy needs to be a lot more careful what he says, and

2) it's sad that this guy comes off as being stupid enough to say something that dumb, even if he isn't. He's like the Yogi Berra of politics. Here's part of the problem's pedigree:

CARNEY: What role should government have in promoting certain industries or economic activities such as homeownership, or manufacturing, renewable energy or fossil fuel energy, exports, or just advanced technology? What sort of subsidies and incentives do you favor? You had some of these in Massachusetts, I know.

ROMNEY: Very limited -- my answer to your first question. I’m not an advocate of industrial policy being formed by a government. I do believe in the power of free markets, and when the government removes the extraordinary burdens that it puts on markets, why I think markets are more effective at guiding a prosperous economy than is the government.

So for instance, I would not be investing massive dollars in electric car companies in California. I think Tesla and Fisker are delightful-looking vehicles, but I somehow imagine that Toyota, Nissan, and even General Motors will produce a more cost-effective electric car than either Tesla or Fisker. I think it is bad policy for us to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in specific companies and specific technologies, and developing those technologies.

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

At least he wasn't one of the candidates who raised their hands during the Republican debate when asked if they didn't believe in evolution. (Was he?)