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 ...
It wasn't an off-the-cuff statement, but put into a speech, and intentionally placed to try to maximize effect.
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.
Just because I recognize the truth doesn't mean that a serial, congenital liar like Romney would have figured that into his calculations. His first instinct, much like Bill Clinton's, is to tell the lie, even if the truth would serve him better.
‘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 only works for those polling above 15 points. If you are below that, your long shot candidacy is in deep trouble. Your donations, such as they are, remain stagnant, just like your poll numbers.
Nobody under 15 percent in the polls today will gain the nomination, based on past performance going back several decades. I do myself a ‘disservice’ by wasting time on them in my experience.
Yep. wish it wasn’t so.
There's a clear pattern here.
Romney's honesty problem (Mitt lied about his own mother's position on abortion?! 8/07)
I’m a small business owner, I don’t have that luxury.
After watching the Hillary campaign destroys Mitt for lying about he and his daddy marching with MLK, while giving a speech about his Mormon faith I would hold my nose and vote for Mitt. I would then go home and watch as Fox calls the race for Clinton.
Your second and third things never happened. Yes, it appears Romney was hoping King would endorse him. And in fact, if you look at King’s endorsement speech, it really looks like it was written as an endorsement of Romney, as it doesn’t mention him and it attacks Fred Thompson, and even the last paragraph which would have been re-written to change the endorsement to Thompson wasn’t all that kind to Fred Thompson.
But Romney never said he had King’s endorsement.
And he never said the NRA endorsed him. He said they supported him, which apparently was true, if the report that a local chapter of the NRA ran a phone bank for him is correct. He also said the endorsed his actions as governor, which is true since they endorsed his work on the AWB ban.
“I’m no Romney fan, but it’s totally believable to me that he simply and sincerely misremembered.”
He went a lifetime with out saying it, even in 1994 when he was taking a beating for his Church’s racial teachings before 1978, he never mentioned it.
Like so many Romney lies this is a new one, special to the 2008 race.
Do you think the “NRA endorsement” was innocent as well, or the lifetime hunter, or the “ I am a gun owner” lie and the so many other self serving mis-truths?
“I’m a life-long republican, but now that I see what the republicans are doing I’m switching parties and voting Democrat”.
We all know how much we enjoy those callers on the talk shows. Your post made me laugh as well.
Romney similarly backtracked after telling a national television audience Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “I received the endorsement of the NRA” in 2002 while running for governor of Massachusetts.
The gun rights group did not endorse either candidate, and gave a higher issues rating to his Democratic opponent.
Romney said Monday, “It was, if you will, a support phone bank, which is not an official endorsement.”
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7779853?source=rss
As many Mitt supporters have said when they dissed Fred Thompson on this forum for being divorced, “It’s a matter of character.”
What speaks more about a man’s character than his continuing failure to tell the truth?
In the role of commander in chief, what could go wrong if Mitt didn’t choose his words more carefully than he has in both the past and the present?
Mitt Romney is not presidential material.
A Clinton calling somebody a liar would be pretty damn amusing in my view, and bring up all the Clintonian era fatigue we remember, even among the Dems.
It's an arbitrary number. With the Iowa caucuses coming up, and 60% of likely caucuses saying they could still change their minds, I'd say anyone could still be a surprise. Personally, I doubt it will be Paul or Hunter, but it is possible.
Of the others, they are all significant enough nationally that they are "in play". In fact, Huckabee is the least strong in this department, being a "national" presence only by a short-term "boomlet" in the polls that is already starting to fade. In the meantime, you have Thompson working a strong ground game in Iowa, and starting to show results there accordingly, both in endorsements and in some polls.
There's no point quitting at the end of the 3rd quarter when you're only down by 14 points.
why don’t you post a link to quotes for your claims about Romney (not just the links that attack him, but links to the quotes from Romney about them).
What if Huckabee wins or Rudy? What if McCain pulls it off? I don’t play “what if” mental games. I find them to be a waste of energy. I believe Fred Thompson is the right choice and I still believe he has a shot at the nomination. So for now, I’ll put my resources into his campaign and make decisions as they need to be made in the weeks and months to come.
‘Why 15? Why not 10? or 5? or 20?
It’s an arbitrary number.’
Uemmm, no, its not ‘arbitrary’ I use that specifically, because of what happened in Iowa in 2004.
Do you remember where John Kerry was heading into Iowa?
10 percent, your toast. 5 percent, your Ron Paul.
15 - 209 percent, your ‘viable’ for the moment.
I will answer your question if you will first swear to me that you’ve never told a lie.
No problemo.
Old News v. New News
Fair enough.
I couldn’t vote for Guiliani under any circumstances. Nor can I support Huckabee, for different reasons, but thats where I’m at.
McCain? How many election cycles do I have to tell this clown ‘NO’?
Ron Paul?....ROTFL!
Too me, its Romney, Thompson, or Hunter...and Duncan will go as Tancredo did I suspect right after Iowa.
This is the first election cycle of my adult life where its a process of elimination, rather than a process of selection.
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