Who says "zany" anymore?

Is news really so hard to come by that people are talking about Mitt Romney using the word "zany" to describe Newt Gingrich?  You'd think Mitt Romney was caught on tape spouting an expletive while smoking a cigarette made by illegal immigrants.

What's next? A flibbertigibbet? A will-o'-the-wisp? A clown?

Apparently, the "z" word is strictly off limits in political discourse and worth devoted coverage when it breaks the lips of a politician.  The Los Angeles Times noted that Romney "lobbed some rhetorical grenades" by using the word.  "With lines like this, just think about what Mitt Romney has saved for Thursday night's debate."

The Daily Mail called the comment Romney's "most personal assault yet on Newt Gingrich."

ABC News characterized Romney's new word as "the latest in a string of attacks" and Ed Rogers, who writes as one of "The Insiders" for the Washington Post, reasons that it "was the product of pre-mediated analysis."

(Who am I to argue? I'm just an outsider who doesn't know what "pre-mediated" means.)

But here are a few key points most people are missing in all the dramatic buildup to what TIME has already named The Zany Debate on Thursday night.

First, Mitt Romney never actually said Newt Gingrich is zany.  It may have been implied, but what Romney actually said in his New York Times interview is this:

Zany is not what we need in a president. Zany is great in a campaign. It’s great on talk radio. It’s great in print, it makes for fun reading, but in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.

What's so controversial about that statement?  Are there people who want a zany president?  Doesn't "zany" get good ratings on the radio and make for entertaining reading?

But here's the bigger point.  "Zany" was not some pre-meditated—or even pre-mediated—comment from Romney.  It wasn't a calculated attack on Gingrich.  It wasn't even a description Romney came up with on his own.  It was used by the New York Times reporter, Jeff Zeleny, to describe the policies that Gingrich might come up with as president.  The New York Times article gives you Romney's response, but you have to watch the interview to hear the question.  Here is what Zeleny asked:

Do you think the American voters are getting enough of a sense of what [Gingrich] might do or is there some worry that as president, should he win, that there might be some zany things coming from the Oval Office?

Zeleny asked if people should worry about zany ideas, so Romney used the word "zany" to answer the question.  That's hardly remarkable.  In the context of the question, Romney actually does a pretty good job of not singling out Gingrich and instead focusing on his own strengths as a leader.

It's not that Romney is trying to avoid criticizing Gingrich.  He has no problem calling Gingrich unreliable and citing specific examples.  But all the hullabaloo—can I say that word?—seems like an example of journalists making the news instead of covering it.  The blame lies primarily with the New York Times for sticking the word in headlines after prompting Romney to say it.  The blame also lies with the many reporters and bloggers who happily disseminated the story without bothering to either watch or accurately report on the full interview.