Mitt Romney doesn’t understand why we can’t open airplane windows

[wyvern999]

He's conquered the world of business and soared to enormous political heights. Could aeronautical engineering be next for Mitt Romney? The GOP presidential nominee wowed a crowd over the weekend with his keen grasp of physics when he lamented that airplanes don’t have windows, appearing to view it as a problem that could be fixed in jiffy with a patent and a couple of good engineers. Speaking about his wife's emergency landing Friday, 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."

With his enormous intellect that is every bit the equal of Dubya's this guy was born to be president.

http://news.uk.msn.com//blog/trending-blogpost.aspx?post=e562d508-8516-4834-aae8-eacc75af4480&_nwpt=1

[Tolpuddle Martyr]

The scary thing? He could still win!

I sometimes wonder if US Repubs are actually coached in being MORE anti-intellectual, village idiot and terminal dumbass than they really are because that resonates so much with the modern Republican base!

[rookie]

That's incredibly stu- wait a second. Did I read that right? "When you have a fire in the aircraft, and there's no place to go...and you can't find any oxygen to get in the aircraft..." does he not know how fire works either? Am I reading that right? He thinks if there's a fire on a plane, opening a window will blow it out somehow?

[Witchyjoshy]

I think he's referring to letting the smoke out for whatever reason.

Incidentally, it probably would choke the fire... and everybody on board, too.  In addition, stuff would probably fly out of the windows, including people.  You'd be surprised what can fit through a small hole when there's a lot of suction going on.

[Canadian Mojo]

Explosive decompression and for further reading: what brings a lot of planes down

[JohnE]

You'd be surprised what can fit through a small hole when there's a lot of suction going on.

That's what she said.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[KZN02]

Does Mitt think we still use biplanes for public transportation?

[Old Viking]

Sweet Jesus on a carousel!  Where is Dan Quayle when we need him?

[shykid]

Please, Mitt, crack open a window on your private jet.

[ironbite]

You guys do know this was already posted in the Dumb Things the Romney campaign has done thread...right?

Ironbite-RIGHT!?

[tempus]

He's conquered the world of business and soared to enormous political heights. Could aeronautical engineering be next for Mitt Romney? The GOP presidential nominee wowed a crowd over the weekend with his keen grasp of physics when he lamented that airplanes don’t have windows, appearing to view it as a problem that could be fixed in jiffy with a patent and a couple of good engineers. Speaking about his wife's emergency landing Friday, 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."

With his enormous intellect that is every bit the equal of Dubya's this guy was born to be president.

http://news.uk.msn.com//blog/trending-blogpost.aspx?post=e562d508-8516-4834-aae8-eacc75af4480&_nwpt=1

I can relate.  I, for one, have often wondered why more submarines don't have screen doors. 

[Undecided]

A review of video footage of Mitt Romney's remarks shows that it is literally true that he did speak the words attributed to him, but it's not true that, as claimed, he was genuinely expressing confusion about why airplane windows don't open. When he said "I don't know why they don't do that" (in reference to airplane windows' not opening), his posture and tone clearly indicated that he intended the line to be taken as a tongue-in-cheek aside rather than as a serious statement:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/windows.asp

I'm inclined to treat this as an instance of quote mining.

[KZN02]

Ok, but joking about something that would have been serious becomes another problem, right?

[Undecided]

Ok, but joking about something that would have been serious becomes another problem, right?

Nearly everybody jokes about situations that might have been serious but turned out all right in the end. I don't like Romney as a presidential candidate, but I'm not going to hold something so benign against him.