WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney took the high road Sunday and refused to fire back at MSNBC for mocking his family’s adoption of a black child.
Instead, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee graciously accepted the apology from MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who made snide jokes about a family photo in which Mitt Romney held his recently adopted black grandson, Kieran.
“People make mistakes and the folks at MSNBC made a big mistake and they’ve apologized for it and that’s all you can ask for,” Romney said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Romney called the baby boy who was adopted by Romney’s son Ben Romney “an answer to a prayer.”
“We love this little guy a great deal,” he said. “We love that he is part of our family.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said that he became a “fair target” when he entered politics.
“But children – that’s beyond the line,” said Romney. “And I think they understand that and feel that as well. I think it is a heartfelt apology and I think for that reason we hold no ill will whatsoever.”
Harris-Perry, who is black, first offered up an apology on Twitter after a stinging backlash to the cruel jests that she and guests made on her weekend MSNBC show Dec. 30.
She made an on-air apology Saturday on her show, choking up when she said: “I broke the ground rule that families are off limits and for that I am sorry.”
“Allow me to apologize to other families that have formed through trans-racial adoption, because I am deeply sorry that we suggested that interracial families are in any way funny or deserving of ridicule,” she said.
The laugh attack on Harris-Perry’s show included guest Pia Glenn singing, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same.” Harris-Perry and the rest of the panel burst into laughter.
“My goal is that in 2040,” snorted Harris-Perry, “the biggest thing of the year will be the marriage between Kieran Romney and North West. Can you imagine Mitt Romney and Kanye West as in-laws?”
Comedian Dean Obeidallah punctuated the hilarity by saying the photo “really sums up the diversity of the Republican Party, the RNC. At the convention they find the one black person.”