Star Spangled Staggers

US politics from outside the beltway

Romney's Churchill gaffe

Republican challenger mistakenly attributes Keynes quote to Churchill in debate.

By George Eaton Published 30 September 2011 16:15

As regular readers will know, Mitt Romney is fond of turning to former British prime ministers for inspiration. In June, he borrowed Margaret Thatcher's most famous poster and declared "Obama isn't working". He's also, like many Republicans, a keen admirer of Winston Churchill (he has vowed to bring back the bronze bust of Churchill that Obama removed from the Oval Office.) At a debate in New Hampshire on Wednesday, he declared:

'In the private sector, if you don't change your view when the facts change, well you'll get fired for being stubborn and stupid. Winston Churchill said, "When the facts change, I change too, Madam".'

The problem, of course, is that it wasn't Churchill but Keynes who remarked: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? " In the event that Romney wins in 2012, perhaps Cameron should present him with a dictionary of quotations.

Hat-tip: Jonathan Jones.

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Tags: Mitt Romney

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8 comments

Fri, 2011-09-30 21:16 — K Christensen (not verified)

Actually, if you do a google search, this quote is attributed to Churchill quite often, including by Dick Morris in a New York Times piece. The closest non-apocryphal source might be this:

"A silly ass ... wrote a paper to prove me inconsistent. ... Inconsistency is the bugbear of fools! I wouldn't give a damn for a fellow who couldn't change his mind with a change of conditions."
John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher, British Admiral and First Sea Lord, in a letter to former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour (ndg); reported in Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. (1961-1965); quoted by Robert K. Massie in Deadnought: Britain, Germany and the Comiing of the Great War (1991).