It took a couple of days but Mitt Romney is finally ready to admit that, ok, London is ready to host the Olympics. Anyway, that's what he told Matt Lauer on The Today Show Friday. And, lest you think he said it just because London Mayor Boris Johnson and the entire British press mocked him mercilessly on Thursday for saying "there are a few things that were disconcerting" about the city's preparation for the Games," Romney made it clear that he's just the kind of guy who has to see this stuff for himself. "After being here a couple of days, it looks like London is ready," he told Lauer. You just can't know these things until you get there. "I read the same reports a lot of people did about all the challenges faced by the organizing committee," he said. "Of course it's hard to put on games in a major metropolitan area. What they have done that I find so impressive is they took the venues and put them right in the city."

Unfortunately for Romney, it may be too late to walk the original comment back. He's already been dubbed "Mitt the twit" by the British tabloids and even Prime Minister David Cameron joined in, cracking on the candidate's role coordinating the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City: "We are holding an Olympic games in one of the biggest, active cities in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic games in the middle of nowhere." That's gotta burn.

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Adam Martin