The only problem with your definitional explanation is that Willard may have said that he *saw* his father march with MLK, but he also said: “My dad marched with Martin L. King.”
He made a similar statement Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said, “You can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mom was a tireless crusader for civil rights.”
Maybe he meant that George saw MLK marching on TV, and
stood up and started quick-stepping in his rumpus room?
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/NEWS07/712200442
Maybe you should just vote for Obama, Hillary, or Edwards and life in America will be so wonderful, fair, good, and balanced. But before then; lets keep trashing our own candidates by letting the media tell us what they said and meant.
The “scandal” that’s ridiculous
Mitt Romney has been drawing criticism for saying that he “saw” his father march with Martin Luther King, even though he did not witness the event. This strikes me as a non-story. It seems probable to me that Romney did not mean to say that he literally saw George Romney and Dr. King marching together. In that event, Romney likely would have said that he was with his father when he marched with King, or that he himself marched with King.
For what it’s worth, my father and I marched “with” King in the historic 1963 Washington event. (I can’t prove it though — my father is dead, my mother who “saw” us off that morning is dead, and I might have purchased my commemorative pin on EBay). I never say that I saw my father march with King because that would understate my participation.
In any case, the point Mitt Romney was making is that his father, a Mormon, had a stellar record on civil rights and participated in the civil rights activism of the early 1960s. That claim is incontestable. It’s a pity, moreover, that Romney would even have to address efforts to pin the formerly racist views of his religion on him.
Meanwhile, though, Jennifer Rubin, who criticized Mitt Romney (absurdly, I thought) for being insensitive to Jews when he kicked off his campaign at the Henry Ford museum, reports that Romney told the Boston Herald in 1978 that he and his father marched with Dr. King. The campaign admits that Mitt Romney never marched with King.
Even assuming that this 29 year-old report accurately quoted Romney, I would have thought that the statute of limitations period on misrepresenting one’s self to the press in 1978 has expired.
Powerline
Witnesses recall Romney-MLK march
By: Mike Allen
Dec 21, 2007 05:45 PM EST
Politico
Shirley Basore, 72, says she was sitting in the hairdresser’s chair in wealthy Grosse Pointe, Mich., back in 1963 when a rumpus started and she discovered that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and her governor, George Romney, were marching for civil rights — right past the window.
With the cape still around her neck, Basore went outside and joined the parade.
“They were hand in hand,” recalled Basore, a former high-school English teacher. “They led the march. We all swung our hands, and they held their hands up above everybody else’s.”
She remembered the late governor as “extremely handsome.”
Until this week, that was just a vivid memory for a sweet retiree who now lives in Pompano Beach, Fla.
But Basore’s memory became important this week when news accounts questioned the recollections of the late Michigan governor’s son, Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor.
News stories suggested that Romney was exaggerating. It turns out that he may not have attended the Grosse Pointe march, but it certainly happened.
The campaign posted citations quoting one author as writing that “George Romney made a surprise appearance in his shirt sleeves and joined the parade leaders.”
Stephen Hess and David S. Broder also wrote about the march in their 1967 book, “The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the G.O.P.”
Basore said she was very angry about how the issue has been covered on cable television.
“This very arrogant guy on TV questioned Mitt Romney, and I marched with them,” Basore said. “I hope that the campaign demands an apology. I want him to publicly apologize to me. That was a personal insult, and an insult to Mitt Romney.”
Basore said she called the campaign, and the campaign supplied her contact information.
Another witness, Ashby Richardson, 64, of Massachusetts gave the campaign a similar account.
“I’m just appalled that the news picks this stuff up and say it didn’t happen,” Richardson, now a data-collection consultant, said by phone. “The press is being disingenuous in terms of reporting what actually happened. I remember it vividly. I was only 15 or 20 feet from where both of them were.”