Mitt Romney gaffes: 11 times the button-down candidate should have buttoned up

In politics, a gaffe is often described as a "truth told by accident." Mitt Romney has had relatively few of them during his time in politics, but when the former governor of Massachusetts commits one, it can be a doozy – and a distraction. Here’s a list of the most memorable.

10. Obama’s ‘peacetime spending binge’

Charlie Neibergall/AP
Republican presidential candidates former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich during the Republican debate Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Most gaffes are made off-the-cuff. But in April, Romney made one in print. In an op-ed published in the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, he attacked Obama for engaging in “one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history.”

Oops.

Can you say Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya? Team Romney quickly corrected the mistake. “He meant to say since World War II,” spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told David Weigel of Slate.

Comedian Stephen Colbert had a field day with the gaffe. Maybe Romney is such a bad boy that three wars feels like peace to him.

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