Friday, August 31, 2012

My new favorite thing about Mitt Romney

Finally, a practical use for the genealogy lesson I gave you all a few weeks ago.

On The Colbert Report last night, Jon Huntsman and Colbert had this exchange:

Stephen Colbert: We've been told that the more we get to know Mitt Romney, the more we're gonna like him. You're a fellow governor, fellow Mormon, fellow businessman — you've known him for years. What are the things that make you just love him as a person?
[Explosive laughter by the audience, Huntsman sits back in his chair, obviously amused and taken aback.]
Colbert: Top five.
Jon Huntsman: Well, I'd have to say that's a little bit unfair as a question, because I'm an insider. He's a relative. You're supposed to like your relatives.
[Colbert leans forward, obviously taken aback.]
Colbert: Are you related to him?
Huntsman: We share the same great great great grandfather — [Wait, what?]
Colbert: And you love everyone in your family?
Huntsman: — and this great  great great grandfather had twelve wives. He was a polygamist — [Wait, what?! No wonder you're not in Tampa. Are you supposed to say that out loud where people outside Utah can hear you?]
Colbert: Really?
Huntsman: — and Mitt clearly came down from the wife with better hair.

So, absorb that chunk of awesome and then fill in the blank:

That makes them                                .

4 comments:

Cousin Mouse said...

inbred.

Mike said...

I've been very well-behaved so far, not referring to Ann Romney as Mitt's main wife.

Fr. Mouse said...

His New Hampshire wife, too.
The straight answer is fourth cousins, though since they have different great-great-great-grandmothers, you might think they were fourth half-cousins, which reduces to second cousins. You would be amusing, but wrong.

bzzzzgrrrl said...

Actually, I'd think that would make them half-fourth cousins, which would not reduce but multiply to eighth cousins, which would also be amusing, but wrong, genealogically.

However, my favorite Adirondakian points out that chromosomally, that's actually right — half-fourth cousins share the same number of chromosomes as eighth cousins (assuming they are not also more closely related than that another way, which I do not assume about these two).

Science!