I think Romney is not only a congenital liar, but a poor one. A good liar keeps it simple, but Romney seems to have this compelling need to over-embellish and add unnecessary detail that makes it easier to expose the lie.
In this latest incident, he could have simply said that he remembered seeing his father march for civil rights in the 60's. But he had to go and embellish it to bring Martin Luther King's name into it, claiming that he saw something he didn't. Now he and his campaign are stuck trying to spin away a false detail that was completely unnecessary for him to have added in the first place.
Mind you, I'd be cutting him more slack if this was an off-the-cuff statement he made. But it wasn't -- it was planned and put into a long-drafted playing of the victim card speech.
You’re absolutely right. Romney supporters keep trying to write this story off with the strawman argument that George Romney really was a civil rights advocate.
But that makes Mitt Romney’s lie *worse* — because all he had to say was that his father marched on behalf of MLK. The fact that he had to lie and say he “saw” his dad march “with” MLK is pathetic. The fact that he went through a series of evasions on this when questioned, ultimately resorting to what the definition of “is” is, is ridiculous. And the fact that this is just the latest in a long series of these incidents rules him out for me completely.