Posted on 12/21/2007 9:58:28 AM PST by Josh Painter
Susan Englander, assistant editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, who is editing the King papers from that era, told the Globe yesterday: "I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with [Dr.] King."
She said that when he was governor of Michigan, George Romney issued a proclamation in June 1963 in support of King's march in Detroit, but declined to attend, saying he did not participate in political events on Sundays. A New York Times story from the time confirms Englander's account.
A few days after that march, George Romney joined a civil rights march through the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, but King did not attend, Englander said. A report in the New York Times confirms Englander's account of that second march...
Romney has repeated the story of his father marching with King in some of his most prominent presidential campaign appearances, including the "Tonight" show with Jay Leno in May, his address on faith and politics Dec. 6 in Texas, and on NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday, when he was questioned about the Mormon Church's ban on full participation by black members. He said that he had cried in his car in 1978 when he heard the ban had ended, and added, "My father marched with Martin Luther King."
Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: "My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."
Yesterday, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged that was not true. "Mitt Romney did not march with Martin Luther King," he said in an e-mail statement to the Globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
And that's all Mitt had to say. To embellish it with false memories wasn't necessary, and is leading to him being his own worst problem.
When your credibility is your #1 liability, stop making stuff up!
If someone says they saw someone march in a parade, and it turns out the person was in a car, would that be a lie as well?
Depends on which polls you look at, but point taken.
Fair enough.
I think we are almost all in agreement that the facts as we now know them are that elder Romney did NOT actually march in the same march as MLK marched in.
The issue is whether that is a revelation to ALL of us, or if SOME of us knew that all along and were lying about it.
It seems clear to me that everybody in this story believed it, that nobody was lying about it, and it was just a case of mistaken memory.
I don't understand all the hubbub. So Romney Sr. didn't actually march WITH King. He did attend a civil rights soon after, also in Detroit. And Romney Sr. rightly declined to march on Sunday, which conflicted with his faith. I am a Thompson guy, but I think this is much ado about nothing.
You're seriously reaching.
You can post till your blue in the fingers bro. It won’t change the fact that Mitt Romney is a serial truth twisting liar.
When Bill Clinton did it the media ignored and sort of chuckled at it because that was their guy. Mitt will not have that luxury even though he is very liberal because the MSM hates republicans.
We might as well vett all this stuff now (as much as it hurts you)before he’s up against Hillary and the MSM.
Sorry dude but marching with King isn’t something that would get blurred with other stuff. The marches were big events and his death was off the scale in the level of coverage it got. Best believe anyone that marched with a man that got assassinated a few years latter would remember it. And those that didn’t would know they didn’t. This is nothing like blurred conversation and everyone knows it.
Just so you know, while the civil rights movement was an historical event, a single march in the thousands that took place over the years was not so much so. Plus, there was a real civil rights march that Romney was in, at the place he says it happened — the only mistake in the narrative is that MLK wasn’t actually IN that march, even though it was a Martin Luther King Freedom March.
It’s an easy mistake to make in memory years later.
And how do you explain away the time Mitt said that he marched with MLK?
YOu like the word clintonian, don’t you. It’s not actually a word, of course, and hardly applies to most of what it is attached to, but you should use it all the time, I think it goes well with your posts.
Come on now. If King was there everyone would know it. If he wasn’t they would know that too.
Sorry sister, maybe in your normal life with few activies, some people are in the mist and have more events going than others in their lives!
Yada Yada yada
I am nobodies sister
You just don’t get it.
For example, on July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. On that very same date, my father and I went for a walk.
Therefore, my father and I walked with Neil Armstrong on the moon.
LOL
Wow... now that is brilliance! I was actually trying to help Romney with sound advice, you know. His biggest problem with voters is that they don't trust him. When he makes false or otherwise intentionally misleading statements, that just gets worse.
Let's be generous and -- despite his pattern of lying, exaggerating, and embellishing -- say that he really was just speaking figuratively. Why would anyone who already harbored reservations about his trustworthiness give him the benefit of the doubt?
He needs to be much more careful about his choice of words, especially in prepared comments.
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