Mitt Romney (R-Bonjour!) has contracted the French disease.
It’s an LTD (Linguistically Transmitted Disease) that also plagued John Kerry (D-Adieu), as this Newt Gingrich web video helpfully reminds us:
That’s drawn a variety of reactions, starting with the BBC’s deadpan review:
Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad – for speaking French.
The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry.
Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics.
Then there’s AlterNet’s take:
The French Connection: Absurd Gingrich Ad Uses Romney’s Bilingual Ability to Compare Him to Kerry
And finally, there’s all this.
As Kerry himself might say, Laissez les bon temps rouler!
(Full disclosure: The hardworking staff’s French was once described by a Paris waiter as brave.)
Campaign Outsider 
It’s upsetting that people, especially GOPers, perceive speaking another language as “elitist,” “un-American,” or an unattractive trait as POTUS. I can’t remember the exact statistic but I once read the U.S. ranked really low in terms of Americans who can speak second languages. It’s embarrassing. I could say a lot more but I’ll leave it there.