Stupidest attack ad yet
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:53 am
Well Mr. Gingrich, if this is the best you can do, then I've gotta tell you, paraphrasing Lloyd Bentsen, you're no Charles DeGaulle.Bonjour, Monsieur Romney.
Newt Gingrich unveiled perhaps the silliest slander of the campaign season Friday by mocking Romney’s ability to — Mon dieu! — utter a few words in halting French.
The 68-second attack ad tries to link Romney to his moderate Massachusetts political brethren and then takes a surreal turn when the narrator breathlessly intones “... and just like John Kerry, he speaks French.”
A clip of the 2004 Democratic nominee saying “Laissez les bons temps rouler” — “Let the good times roll,” the Mardi Gras slogan — is then followed by footage from 2002 of the current GOP front-runner introducing himself: “Bonjour. Je m'appelle Mitt Romney.”
That video was released as a promotion for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, for which Romney served as chief executive. English and French are the official languages of the Olympics.
The attack ad — which is dubbed “The French Connection” and also includes politically infamous images of former Bay State Governor Michael Dukakis in a tank and Kerry wind-surfing — was not funded by a Super PAC, but rather by the Gingrich campaign.
That means Gingrich — a former college professor who fancies himself as an intellectual — gave his approval for an ad that mocks the ability to speak a second language.
Gingrich has not always been such a Francophobe.
He lived in France for a few years as a teenager and has repeatedly compared himself to French World War II hero Charles de Gaulle.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... z1jUILzF7l