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 ...
No, I’m not doing it because I don’t really care. But time after Time, Fred Supporters come around and attack Mitt Romney for something. And I ask, “what about Fred”, and they haven’t bothered to even look into his life the slightest bit to see if he has a similar problem.
Which proves to me that in fact they really care LESS about the issue, and instead are just looking to attack Mitt.
If you really cared about this, you’d be checking the background of your candidate to make sure he’s someone you can support.
And that's the simple fact left standing after all the hue and cry. This is an issue because Mitt made a mistake, had an innocent misrecollection, or told a baldfaced lie, or simply used figurative language. Whatever the case, he and he alone is the source of this damaging distraction.
Why, if he believed MLK was in the march?
Nice strawman.
But as to the 2nd woman, since we have concluded that King did not march with Romney, the question is whether Romney marched in Grosse Pointe. And the answer is yes, even thought the woman you quote also said Romney wouldn't have come to Grosse Pointe.
We also know King marched in Detroit six days earlier, and I don't know if that march included Grosse Pointe or not, nor does it matter since we know that Romney was invited to march in that march but turned it down.
That an historian had to do research to show that it was untrue shows that it was not obviously false.
Then I guess that makes us even. ;)
We only have the one sentence quote, but that one sentence quote could be read to indicate Romney marched in a march with MLK along with his dad.
That would of course be consistant with seeing his dad marching, because he would see him if he was in the march with him, if only for a little bit.
That was from a 1978 article.
I obviously am responding to posts as I get to them. I should have clicked “view replies” first to see if someone had already corrected you, and I apologize for that.
I think it’s magic underwear.
Well, it’s not up their with saying you oppose a major plank of the republican platform, possibly derailing your pending NRTL endorsement and forcing your campaign to come out with a statement that you really WILL support the platform, you just meant it wasn’t important.
But since that wasn’t Mitt, we should ignore it like it never happened on the Tim Russert program.
That thread you linked claimed Mitt lied about his mother’s position on abortion. The quote is his mother’s position on abortion, showing he did not lie about it.
There’s really not much more to say, except for all the annoying buzzing by the gnats.
Yes, I agree, and I wish Romney would have responded directly to this. However, I also realise that this is a meaningless point to begin with, and him personally addressing it would just make it sound more important than the little importance it is.
If I were running, I’d be talking about everything said, and probably end up hopelessly distracted. In this case, this entire discussion is a meaningless distraction from the issues of the campaign, which is why the opposition brings it up.
Since when did facts become stawman unless you don’t understand he meaning of stawman!
There are tons of documents in the Michigan govenor archives to support George Romney part in the Civil Right movement.
And Geo did march in another CR 6 days later in Grosse Pointe with out MLK.
The quote is what Mitt claims is his mother’s position on abortion. Do you have a contemporaneous source for the quote, or just Willard’s self-serving “statement?”
More importantly, in any event, the article says far more than that about Willard’s casual relationship with the truth. Your spin is silly.
What about responding to the rest of his faux pas as well.
This one to me is NOT the be all end all. This one to me was a blip but when added to the other blips ...it gets to be a heavy load.
Yes, but you're proving a point that hasn't been contested. Who has contradicted Romney's part in the Civil Rights movement? Link it, I'd like to see you get something right.
That does nothing to support Willard's lie, which he and his campaign have both tried dismiss as figurative.
The silly squad is falling by the waysides, and only DUNCAN HUNTER will be left standing.
As I’m not privy to the man’s mind, none of my “defenses” are based on knowing what happened. I can only attempt to interpret the facts that I have before me.
I can understand the “figurative” discussion. If I were trying to make up an excuse, I would have chosen the “I always believed it”.
I remember last year thinking that Allen must really think he never said the “N-word”, because if I was telling him to do what was best for his campaign I would have told him to say he was sorry for using it, instead of denying it. The only reason NOT to do so is if it was actually a lie.
However, in this case I’m not certain WHAT the Romney response is. I’d like to see a direct statement from the campaign rather than an article selectively quoting from it.
I appreciate what you said about me, and wanted to make it clear that I am really just looking for rational explanations of the information in front of me. And in almost every case, no matter what the candidate, if it’s a republican I’m interpreting things in the light most favorable to the republican.
If I wanted, I could tear down every one of our candidates. What would the point be?
BTW, I feel like you do as regards theories, but my interpretation of it is that they are probably telling the truth. Because if he was a liar, he certainly has people smart enough to give him my explanation. He wouldn’t need me to do so.
Therefore, since he isn’t using that explanation, which as you said would probably be more “believable”, it suggests to me that they are telling the truth, rather than lying. A lie would be “better”, and they aren’t using it, so it makes little sense to suggest they chose an unbelievable “lie” instead of a believable one.
BTW, if the complaint here had been that Romney is loose with his words, and spoke without regard to whether the story was actually true or not, I’d probably agree with that. I think he does say things that while literally true, don’t really convey an accurate view.
Like his statement about being a hunter. I guess if I thought more highly of politicians that would bother me more, but there are few politicians I know who don’t fall into rhetorical excesses on a regular basis.
Again, if he had just said “oops” instead of using definitions to explain it away, I would be fine with this. It may have been a family story to a certain extent. In fact, it could have been a kind of funny one after he realized the error. You, know, stories change over the years and all that. I imagine Paul Bunyan was once an ordinary man. Over the years, the stories grew and so did his size! The same can happen in families. He should have just been able to accept it was not as he had stated earlier.
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