Romney was speaking to the Times about his chevalier Ann’s brush with danger last week, when a plane on which she was a passenger was forced to make an emergency landing after an electrical fire caused the cabin to fill with smoke.

“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. So it’s very dangerous.”

The scene that immediately preceded this interview:

Advisor: Mitt, you’re tanking in the polls, the more people get to know you. We have to make you a more popular Republican.

Mitt: Marvelous! What shall we do, for Pete’s sake?

Advisor: Go out there, and try to be as stupid as George W. Bush. It worked great for us in 2000 and 2004.

Mitt: That’s the kind of thinking that makes trees exactly the right height! Marvelous!