Mitt Lets the Dogs Out

Oblivious Romney's comments to African Americans so tone-deaf they're stunning
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 22, 2008 1:31 PM CST

Mitt Romney’s attempts to make small talk with black voters on Martin Luther King Day were so tone deaf, Slate’s Christopher Beam blogs, that they were less offensive than stunningly clueless. Posing for a photo op with young African Americans, Mitt riffed, “Who let the dogs out? Who, who”; meeting a baby wearing a necklace, the candidate tried, “What’s happening? You got some bling bling here!”

George Romney may have "almost" marched with King, Beam observes, but judging from his son's display, “you'd guess that was the last time a Romney interacted with an African-American.” Jonathan Chait of the New Republic adds: "Romney has acquired the aura of an overbearing, upper-class phony. But I see him as more of an earnest dweeb, desperately, and unsuccessfully, trying to fit in with his new crowd." (More Mitt Romney stories.)

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