Culture Is The Soul of Development': Krauthammer Defends Romney's Comments on Israel

In just over a minute, Charles Krauthammer slapped down the criticisms of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's speech to Israel as somehow "racist" in an appearance on Fox News today with Brett Baier.

"I disagree entirely with the consensus of the press, the mindless consensus that Romney had a gaffe regarding the Palestinians when he said culture has a lot to do with the state of one's economy," Krauthammer said. "He was doing nothing more than echoing the words of the U.N. Arab Development Report. This is U.N. It's written by Arab intellectuals. It's not written by Zionists."

And what did the report say? "Culture is the soul of development." In fact, the report criticized Arab culture in particular for its lack of womens' rights, human rights, etc, and suggested that the corruption in the political culture was leading to a backwards economy in Arab states, according to Krauthammer. Pretty damning stuff, and none of it from a racist, or even a conservative source.

Watch Krauthammer's remarks below.