Mitt Romney avoids further gaffes on last day of bumpy international tour

Published on 01/08/2012 00:00

US REPUBLICAN presidential candidate Mitt Romney wrapped up a gaffe-filled international tour yesterday by dismissing criticism that he had undermined his attempt to present himself as a replacement for president Barack Obama as one of his aides lost his cool with the media.

Mr Romney’s European tour was meant to burnish his foreign policy credentials, but has instead generated embarrassing headlines after he offended the British by questioning their readiness to host the Olympics and the Palestinians by suggesting they were culturally inferior to the Israelis.

In an interview with Fox News, Mr Romney said reporters were allowing themselves to be diverted from woes in the US economy and the substance of his own trip, in which he sided strongly with Israel.

He said: “I realise that there will be some … who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geopolitics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearisation of Iran.”

Mr Romney studiously avoided making any off-the-cuff comments to the media yesterday, and, after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, ignored shouted questions from reporters about mishaps on the trip.

Ignoring the questions, Mr Romney strode back to his ­motorcade vehicle as an aide ­admonished members of the press. “Shove it,” the aide, Rick Gorka, told reporters.