Speaking of Language, Monsieur Romney

[kskiska]

Republicans have gone into high dudgeon over Barack Obama’s suggestion at a town hall meeting in Georgia this week that Americans might profitably emulate the European dexterity with language (when it comes to foreign languages, Europeans tend to speak many, while Americans tend to know rien, nada, niente, nichts).

(snip)

“I do think that, frankly, Barack Obama looks towards Europe for a lot of his inspiration,” said former Gov. Mitt Romney told Fox’s Hannity & Colmes, adding: “I think John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America.”

But hold the nativism and pass the parlez-vous. Mr. Romney also let Mr. Hannity in on a secret: “I’m proud to say I can say a little bit more than Merci beaucoup.” And he understates it. As The Washington Post reported in 2005, Mr. Romney met a French-speaker in New Hampshire and promptly broke into French, adding that he lived in Paris “which he said was fore-mi-dahb.” (Translation: So cool).

During the Republican primary, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani inveighed against cracks in the façade of English as our first language — until they alighted in Florida and ran Spanish-language commercials. Mr. Romney’s commercial featured his son speaking fluently, with a one sentence Spanish language coda from Mr. Romney.

more…
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/speaking-of-language-monsieur-romney/