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 ...
See my tagline.
Conservatives without exception who know how to tell the truth.
True. And we know that intention is all that matters.
Since I'm having a hard trying to convince myself he could have been mistaken when he made the original comments, maybe it is. He also made a similar statement about the NRA endorsement he never received.
Mitt is no dummy. He has to know his statements will be checked. So why risk so much on one story that would not make that much difference to his candidacy were it true but which could definitely hurt it because it's not? He also denied he ever said he was pro choice though video shows him emphatically stating it. It's been one thing after another.
Mitt has a truth and credibility problem. The problem is his. He made it by his own statements and by running and governing as a moderate/liberal Republican and then verbally morphing into a conservative just before his run for President. It all adds up. Not one incident. Not one statement. The whole package.
‘McCain may be a nutjob, but he’s not prone to embellishment.’
He lost me with the Keating Five, then reaffirmed I was correct in not supporting him with his decade long snide attacks on conservatives like myself. CFR just reinforced my position on him.
” Thompson’s a straight-shooter.”
I had high hopes for Fred Thompson, but his ‘walking’ for the Presidency, instead of Running for the Presidency has kept him from being taken seriously by the voters in the primaries, as the polls demonstrate conclusively. I wish that wasn’t the case.
’ I have no reason to doubt Paul’s sincerity, only his sanity.’
So you’ll overlook his insanity, but not one line in a Romney speech, even though its certain he’s not insane? No way I’d ever vote for the Ronulan, see my tag line.
” And Hunter also seems to be a straight-shooter. Pick one of them.”
Like Thompson, I’ve been disappointed with his performance in the debates leading up to the primaries. He can’t win the GOP nomination for the simple reason that while his positions are pretty good, his delivery and ability to lead is lacking. Again, I wish it wasn’t so.
You want me to support candidates that have low to zero chance of being in the game come November of 2008.
I appreciate your straight answer, thank you.
Badeye wrote: “Who do you think I should support?”
If you don’t know by now, perhaps no one.
Thanks.
Thompson could conceivably pull it out, but with each passing day that hope grows dimmer.
As I just noted, I wish Hunter had caught fire with the GOP base, but he’s out after Iowa in my opinion. He’s right on the issues from what I’ve seen, but his lack of charisma and leadership skills (as in getting people to follow him) doom his run. He’s politically a ‘dead man walking’. I take no joy in noting this.
Wow, that’s no longer spinning, that’s self-delusional.
Mitt lied and got caught.
It’s a small thing, but brings into question Mitt’s sudden conversion to conservatism.
As an amateur political adviser, I would advise a client to tell the truth when he is giving a speech about his faith.
Thanks for the reference. I have been noting that the march Romney was in was called an MLK march, but I didn’t have a link. But from your link:
“FACT: In The Summer Of 1963, Governor Romney Participated In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Freedom Marches” In Grosse Pointe, Michigan.”
That puts three of the original story claims to bed. 1) the march was NOT in 1967; 2) so Mitt was NOT out of the country; 3) Romney DID march through Grosse Pointe.
But it also shows that the march was one of Martin Luther King’s marches.
So if Romney had said “My father walked IN Martin Luther King’s march”, he would have been completely accurate, even though that might still make some people think he was saying that Martin Luther King was in the march with him.
It’s this kind of thing that makes history so interesting — people can’t remember what they did 4 days ago, but some people are getting upset over one word describing a story from 4 decades ago.
Well, in fact, they aren’t getting upset. The only people who are screaming about how “bad” this is are people who hate Romney already.
What are you going to do if he gains the nomination come November of 08?
If you want to talk about other issues, that's for different topics, but I will point out if your only reason for not liking Thompson or Hunter is that you're disappointed in their polling status, you're doing yourself a disservice. The only polls that matter are the ones where they actually count votes. Let's see how those go before we write anyone off, shall we?
That may be the case for something that happened before I was born, but not a thing that I witnessed. Regardless, Mitt hasn't made that defense. He's said his statement in the "Faith in America" speech was only meant figuratively, and he actually got rather prissy defending that point of view by pointing to his English major credentials and the dictionary definitions of "saw".
The trouble for him is that this 1978 statement to a reporter has emerged, and you can't even fit that one into a "I meant it figuratively" meme. It's way too specific. It underscores my belief that Mitt was just lying in '07, and that his "figurative" spin was just a panicked attempt at explanation that he probably should have waited on a little before committing to.
Why would Romney purposely lie about this in 1978, and again in 2007? Maybe he's just a born liar, Charles. You know that that's been one of the main objections to the man even before this came out.
Post proof that this was "calculated". After all, you REFUTE YOUR OWN claim in your same paragraph, as you note that such a lie would be "pointless" and would obviously NOT do what you claim it was "calculated" to do.
If Romney gains the nomination, what will you do?
I agree, Thompson all to often looks like a man being walked to the electric chair rather than a man running for the presidency. It is frustrating and at first I thought that Fred was simply playing the role of the reluctant candidate, running for America and not himself.
Well, the stories often interchange “Grosse Pointe” and “Detroit”, so I don’t see what the problem is with that. And we know for a fact that Romney marched in a Martin Luther King Freedom March in 1963 in Detroit, that is in Grosse Pointe.
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