La Belle France
LA BELLE FRANCE....Mitt Romney says that in France they now have 7-year mariage contracts — and the Washington Post reports this howler without comment. But Mark Kleiman has a comment:
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.At first I was thinking about relating this to the demise of foreign bureaus among American media outlets. In the past, they could have just called their guy in Paris and fact checked this in a couple of minutes.
But then I remembered that the Post is one of the few newspapers in America that does still have a sizable stable of foreign bureaus, including one in Paris. So what's their excuse? Beats me.
POSTSCRIPT: Of course, Romney did make his remarks at the now infamous Regent University, ground zero for movement conservative recruits to the Bush administration. I'm sure they lapped it up.