Quickie: An American in London

Mitt Romney's in London, y'all. We know this because yesterday the big presidential-race story was that an unidentified Romney advisor was quoted as saying:

"We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he (Romney) feels that the special relationship is special...The White House didn't fully appreciate the shared history we have."

... which is tacky because A) after a four-year term which included taking out both bin Laden and Qaddafi, the GOP is STILL going with "this skinny kid doesn't know anything about the world" as an attack line, really? and B) it's kind of racist-ish. Basically, you're saying that "America" and "Great Britain" both equal "white European," and that therefore someone whose heritage is African, Asian, etc., isn't really British or American, and can never really understand what it means to be American or British the way a white guy can. (Which I'm sure made our Native American citizens chuckle.)

To his credit, Romney disavowed the alleged comment, saying "It goes back to our very beginnings -- cultural and historical. But I also believe the president understands that. So I don't agree with whoever that adviser might be..." But now Romney has bigger problems with the Brits because then today this happened.

Before meetings with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband on Thursday, he told US television: "It is hard to know just how well it will turn out."

Romney told NBC News: "There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials – that obviously is not something which is encouraging."

In the interview he also called into question whether the British people were behind the Games.

"Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the Games actually begin," he said.

Um... I really hope that Romney was either misquoted or taken out of context or something. (Video would help.) Because it's hard for me to believe that a candidate for the U.S. presidency would be dumb enough to say something like that publicly, especially less than 24 hours after lecturing the actual president about the importance of our relationship with Great Britain. Countries tend to take their Olympic hosting duties seriously, which I assume Romney would know given his involvement with the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Going on TV and basically saying "I dunno, we'll just have to see if they can manage to pull this off, and their citizens probably don't care anyway," well, that's just weird. Why don't you just insult their teeth while you're at it?