Posted on 12/22/2007 7:04:49 AM PST by Leisler
Mitt Romney continued to cite a 1967 book reference as proof his father marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr. even as the author insisted he has no evidence to back up the claim.
“In 1963, George Romney did participate in Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Freedom Marches’ in Grosse Pointe,” said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom yesterday, citing the book titled “The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP.”
But Stephen Hess, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution who wrote the book with Washington Post columnist David S. Broder, said the reference to Romney’s father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, marching with King was “meant totally symbolically.”
“The point we were making was that the issue of Mormonism had to do with its civil rights record. Did he walk with Martin Luther King? Today I have no idea,” Hess said.
The book, lacking footnotes and references, says in a chapter about George Romney, “He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit and he is on record in support of full-coverage Federal open-housing legislation.”
But two members of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society said yesterday King never set foot in Grosse Pointe in 1963 and they woud have known if George Romney marched with him.
A member of the committee that invited King to appear at Grosse Pointe High School on March 14, 1968 - the only time historians say King appeared in the Detroit suburb - says George Romney wasn’t at the event and there was no “march” at that time.
“Dr. King was flown into Detroit and rushed into Grosse Pointe under heavy security, gave his address and then left very shortly thereafter,” said Russell Peebles, 88, who was a member of the Grosse Pointe school board’s Human Relations Committee, which invited King to speak. “George (Romney) was not in the audience. He certainly wasn’t on the stage.”
Romney claimed in his widely watched speech on religion earlier this month in College Station, Texas, and in a Sunday appearance on ‘Meet the Press’ that he “saw” his father march with the leader of the civil rights movement. In Iowa today, as his campaign tried to wriggle out of questions, Romney parsed definitions of the word “saw” and claimed his use of the term was “figurative.”
Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics called Romney’s parsing “Clintonian,” adding, “He just thought no one would ever check.”
You've got to be kidding me. 1963, read the newspapers. What these "witnesses" now say happened never happened. The organizer of the Grosse Pointe event which George Romney did show up for is still alive and has spoken about it. The story you guys are peddling is a falsification of history. Hit job, schmit job - this is about reality.
They quote the book? Come on, not this ____ again. Papers at that time say there was two separate marches on different days. This proves nothing.
It doesn't appear to be. You've got eyeline matching with the girl, the cast shadow behind MLK's chin seems appropriate to where a flash would originate, though the highlights are somewhat strong compared to the women but he's black and the women may be wearing foundation. That one is tougher to judge/easier to fabricate because of the blank space behind him, his shadows cast onto a white wall, theirs cast onto a dark wood panel, etc.
I'm not saying any picture with a Romney and MLK is fake. But, blindly believing everything we see, no matter how preposterous, in order to validate what we believe is beyond the pale.
And George Washington chopped down the cherry tree. Is this where myths begin?
This is absolute baloney. MLK was not at Romney's Grosse Pointe event, and Romney was not at MLK's event six days earlier. The accounts written in 1963 by the people who were there establish this, and after claiming he marched with MLK in Detroit, Mitt Romney now admits that never happened.
Just how is Mitt worth all this twisting and fact-bending?
And the only ones who got burned were us.
Nope.
OMG! You’re too funny.
A liar like this can only destroy everything he associates with as Bill Clinton did. He will, justifiably so, destroy the reputations of the conservatives that defend him.
You do a pretty good job of it yourself.
Go Fred.
I attack the candidate. They attack the poster.
Let’s wait and see, shall we?
One thing we both can agree on is neither you nor I were there so we really don’t know for sure. Now that two people have popped up saying they were there and participated in the march; the issue now becomes who is right, two eye-witnesses or the present manager of the town’s historical society, who, btw, wasn’t there either in 1963.
One thing’s for sure, this story will continue to grow and more and more people will eventually speak up and say yea or nay, one way or the other.
Frankly, Mitt Romney’s statement about seeing his father march with MLK is so minor, especially when he clarified he was only speaking figuratively. How much worse is that than Huckabee’s outright lies about his actions as a political leader in Arkansas that prove he’s a liberal in disguise? At least with Huckabee, the threat of another Jimmy Carter with a Bill Clinton charm is a very real danger. The same cannot be said about Romney, who bears a terrible burden of needing to be a moral example for the sake of his faith.
I suspect a picture will eventually be found to validate the walk, but the fact remains George Romney was a fierce advocate for civil rights during a time it was extremely unpopular among many whites, especially those “Christians” in the South who did their best to keep the black man down.
My, how the kettle calls the pot black!
by
Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press ( 1d 23h ago)
...Free Press archives, however, showed no record of King marching in Grosse Pointe in 1963 or of then-governor Romney taking part in King's historic march down Woodward Avenue in June of that year. George Romney told the Free Press at the time that he didn't take part because it was on a Sunday and he avoided public appearances on the Sabbath because of his religion.
Romney did participate in a civil rights march protesting housing bias in Grosse Pointe just six days after the King march. According to the Free Press account, however, King was not there.
Let me know which is found first. That picture or some archaeological evidence supporting th BOM.
By the way. According to some here, that was a bigoted statement.
That issue's already been resolved. See post 193. News reports from the time say that Romney did not appear on the June 23 march, and King did not appear at the June 29 thing.
Mitt's "clarification" only creates bigger problems now that his 1978 statement that HE marched with Martin Luther King in the streets of Detroit has turned up. He now admits that never happened. If he wasn't speaking "figuratively" then, and it's too specific to be read that way, it's absurd to claim he didn't really mean it when he repeated essentially the same thing in 2007. Mitt was a liar in 1978, and apparently he hadn't changed 29 years later.
Thanks.
Cancel my request. I mis-read the statement.
I've got nothing on the 'picture', but as for archaeological evidence supporting the BoM...
Liberal news coming out of Boston is now gospel....very lame.
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