Anonymous wrote:I would hope my team would say that I was joking too. What else would they say? "You are right, that wasn't too bright".

It wasn't the Romney campaign that said he was joking, it was the New York times reporter who was the pool reporter who reported the original quote.

Which seems more likely:

Option 1: it really was a joke

Option 2: Romney is such an idiot he doesn't understand the basics of airplanes, AND he was able to get a New York times reporter to cover for him and claim it was actually a joke.

Willard forgot that earth people need oxygen!

I would hope my team would say that I was joking too. What else would they say? "You are right, that wasn't too bright".

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/mitt-romney-joke-joking-airplane-windows.html

It turns out that he was joking. Which makes a lot of sense. Hard to imagine him being that dumb.

Anonymous wrote:I think his riff on the ER as justification for getting rid of Obamacare was a bigger boo boo.

Yes, it takes attention away from the individual mandate, which has gotten Romney a lot of mileage, and shifted it to the fact that we are all paying for poor people's health care anyway - just via the ER.

I have misspoken as much as anyone else, but I understand basic science and have never misspoken on the topic of depressurizing an aircraft in flight.

I think his riff on the ER as justification for getting rid of Obamacare was a bigger boo boo.

Anonymous wrote:I think he just misspoke, and I despise him. But it can't be easy for anyone in the public eye 24/7 to speak correctly 100% of the time.

I agree with this pp. I think this has happened to all of us. Still, it's not a good sign exactly!

Anonymous wrote:I hate to be the buzzkill, since I'm a Dem, but they could let in air below 10,000 feet, and it doesn't take very long to get a plane down to 10,000 feet. It's a hell of a lot shorter than the time it takes to find an airport in an emergency and land. I doubt it would be by rolling down windows but an air intake would do the trick.

Commercial airliners have oxygen masks. The last thing we need to worry about -- in addition to trays and seats being in the upright positions -- is passengers opening and closing windows.

I hate to be the buzzkill, since I'm a Dem, but they could let in air below 10,000 feet, and it doesn't take very long to get a plane down to 10,000 feet. It's a hell of a lot shorter than the time it takes to find an airport in an emergency and land. I doubt it would be by rolling down windows but an air intake would do the trick.

I think he just misspoke, and I despise him. But it can't be easy for anyone in the public eye 24/7 to speak correctly 100% of the time.

I think he was joking.

Apparently, for real. Not satire.

For real? LOL

He actually said:

“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “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 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.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-beverly-hills-fundraiser-20120922,0,2317962.story

Next, I think he's going to propose that submarines should also have windows that can be opened.