What’s Up With Romney’s Persistent, Huge Geographical Goof?

In the third presidential debate last Monday night, Republican candidate Mitt Romney displayed his lack of foreign policy acumen in many ways, not the least of which was when he said that  Syria is “Iran’s route to the sea.” Syria isn’t even a neighbor of Iran and Iran has a coast of its own that gives it direct access to international waters, so Iran doesn’t need to rely on Syria to get to the sea at all. It was a factually false statement, but what is even more surprising is that Romney has made this same patently false statement repeatedly during the campaign and been called out on it as many times. He said it last  February at a GOP debate in Arizona. He said it in a TV interview on December 21, 2011 on MSNBC. He’s said it at least three other times, too, and the error has been brought to his attention.  Despite having made, and been corrected, on this same mistake at least five times before during his campaign, Romney stuck to this geographical misstatement in the important, final debate with President Obama on foreign affairs. Did Mr. Romney neglect to check a map of the middle east prior to his debate on foreign affairs with President Obama? Did he think he could make the same mistake again and people just wouldn’t notice? Doesn’t he care whether his statements are factually correct in a nationally-televised debate?

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