• May 7, 2007 4:24 AM

    Just Because He Lies Doesn't Mean We Need to Report It

    The Washington Post needs to remind its reporters that they are more than court stenographers to the Presidential candidates. When a front-runner makes an insane and fact-free comment, one of the best-respected papers in America shouldn't let it pass without comment.

    In case you've missed it, I'm talking about Mitt Romney's fanciful delusions about French marriage:

    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. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.

    What? Who told you that? A number of blogs have tried to figure out what on Earth he's talking about and the closest they've come is the premise of a farcical French film.

    So either Romney confuses film with reality; or, Romney trusts advisors who are that removed from reality; or, he just doesn't care if he lies to a group of 5,000 students.

    But what Romney does is Romney's business. However, the Washington Post's business should be fact-checking such an absurd claim before re-printing it without comment. Thankfully, blogs are doing that job when the traditional press forgets to.


    Posted by Justin Krebs
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    Tags: blogs, France, press, Romney

Discussion

  • Peter [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    Thanks, Justin.

    I will now add 7 ans de mariage to my netflizzle queue.

    Is it too much of a coincidence that the French president is also elected for 7 years, and those elections were held yesterday?

    Actually, there's all sorts of innuendo material here, since the socialist candidate (who lost) is the unmarried life partner of the head of the socialist party. (and don't go suggesting nepotism - she is supremely qualified!). And now that I think of it, the French term for split government, where the president is of one party and the legislature and prime minister are of the other party - is cohabitation.

    It's just possible that Romney was thinking about the 199 PACS law, which expanded the longstanding and well-established civil union laws in France (among other things, establishing tax equity and extending the rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples). It's true that this law refers to the relationship as a contract, but so do many of the laws regarding marriage in this country! In fact, what is it, if not a contract? Nothing specifically about seven years, though. Don't know where that came from.

    Posted on May 7, 2007 12:34 PM

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