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 ...
Yeah, he’s “squeaky clean” except that he lies about stuff he doesn’t have to lie about.
***
Looks like the Media and Phonix like to lie
Ann Marie Curling also does a great job of debunking the Phoenix lie over at CoMITTed to Romney. She also cites to a source I forgot to include, where MLK was happy with Romney running for President (as well as other progressive Republicans like Nelson Rockerfeller
Cool Mitt can flip flop yet again. This time can he say his dog joined him in the march?
*
Fehrnstrom had originally told the Phoenix that the two men marched together in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, either in June 1963 or March 1968, a claim the Phoenix called into question earlier today. An additional source, William LeFevre of the Reuther Library at Wayne State University, who is in charge of the papers of the Grosse Pointe Civil Liberties Association, has since confirmed to the Phoenix that George Romney was not at the 1968 event, and that King was not at the 1963 event.
Fehrnstrom now says that the event in question was King’s “Freedom March” in Detroit on June 23, 1963.
He provides one reference, a 1972 book about Detroit, which mentions that Michigan’s then-governor George Romney “was among the prominent whites marching with Reverend King” in the Freedom March (which the book erroneously says took place on July 23).
However, numerous contemporaneous and historical accounts say that Romney did not participate in the Detroit Freedom March, because it was held on the Sabbath. The New York Times, for example, wrote the next day that “Gov. George Romney, who is Mormon and does not make public appearances on Sundays, issued a special proclamation.”
http://thephoenix.com/Article.aspx?id=53200&page=2
That rebuttal didn’t take long.
The answer is obvious -- he never did see his father march with King.
Further, this example is one of dozens of lies and flip-flops this sleaze bag has told.
Trust me, this won't be the last time Mitt Wit is caught lying because, like Clinton, he lies like he breathes.
Thank you Ol’ Sparky, for your view but I am still puzzled why not just one but 4 Books were written around the time stating that George Romney did March July 23, 1963, and a tape recording of MLK saying June 23, 1963.
I respect your point of view but I will not engage in bashing Mitt and I have no answer why this confusion around the date I am sure in time it will get resolved with out a question mark??
Nothing can take away the fact that George Romney was of the leading civil rights leader.
I as a citizen have one event to remember but what all took place in my own family events and timeline is not always as accurate in this stage of the Life.
Is Long Term Memory Accurate?
One of the biggest controversies in memory reseach concerns the accuracy of memory. Some people believe that memories are highly accurate. Others believe that while memories MAY be accurate, they are also subject to distortion. In general, research supports the latter view.
There are two major foci for the controversies over the accuracy of memories.
1. “Flashbulb” Memories
People used to believe (and some still do) that under some circumstances, we could form a detailed, perfect memory of what was happening when we heard about a distinctive, surprising, significant event. Such memories are termed “flashbulb” memories. It was believed that these memories were similar in detail to the type of image we get when we take a photograph. (At the moment that the flash goes off- everything is “permanently” recorded.) It was part of memory dogma that these memories were accurate and resistant to fading.
An example that is likely to have led to a “flashbulb” memory for your generation is what you were doing when you first learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. People who are old enough also have “flashbulb” memories of what we were doing when we heard that Kennedy had been shot, or when we heard that the Challenger (space shuttle) had blown up.
When memory researchers actually TESTED whether “flashbulb” memories were accurate and resistant to fading, the answer was “no.” Ulric Neisser, who was at Emory at the time, actually interviewed Emory students right after the Challenger blew up. He asked them what they were doing and who they were with. Then he found the same students a year later and asked them the same questions. He found that, although students still strongly believed that their memories were accurate, many student’s memories had changed over the course of the year, which meant that “flashbulb” memories are subject to some of the same inaccuracies and distortions as other memories.
Well there are three other books that also say July 23, 1963 I find that amazing all 4 would say the same date!
Sure leaves a gapping hole!
I hadn't seen this claim. Ugh.
The latter part of your statement is incorrect. Just one presidential primary ago, Kerry was at 9% -- only three points ahead of Sharpton -- four days before the Iowa Cauci.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040209052946/www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem.htm
No one has a clue what's going to happen. I will venture that this stuff from Romney is probably not going to help him. But beyond that, only time will tell.
Do you really think like this?
Something that is not a fact, cannot be correctly thought of as almost a fact.
That alone shows that Romney is habitual liar in the Clinton mold and one of the reasons he is the candidate most likely to be destroyed in a landslide.
Game, set, match.
I not supporting Romney now, but why take this memory away from Mitt. Considering it was 1963 he marched with King all right. I support Huckabee.
“I’m no Romney fan, but it’s totally believable to me that he simply and sincerely misremembered”
I was in about the 8th or 9th grade in Michigan at the time, but I still remember George Romney as very involved in civil rights and seeing the Detroit marches on television. I don’t think Romney was being devious. He was also young at the time (and over in France) and most likely didn’t really remember the exact events, dates and times.
You are really getting hung up on semantics. Take a breath, and try to read with an understanding of what I am trying to say.
“It was almost a fact” means that it ALMOST happened, meaning that it was scheduled to happen, but something intervened so it didn’t happen, but it easily COULD have happened.
Remember, my point was that Hillary couldn’t possibly have been named for Sir Edmund Hillary’s climb, since the climb happened later. But Elder Romney COULD HAVE, and ALMOST DID, march with King.
Maybe I should have said “almost did” rather than “it almost was a fact”, but I was using the term “almost” as in “it nearly happened”, not in “it was just about but not quite”.
Anyway, now it appears that several other sources think the march happened in July and Elder Romney was in the march.
I find it very revealing that we can’t pin down WHEN a march happened only 40 years ago. It greatly strengthens my argument, which is that the possible error in a minor fact from that long ago is of absolutely no concern of mine, because people get facts like that wrong all the time.
If 4 days after he is called a deliberate liar, we still can’t even figure out whether what he said was a lie or not, it pretty much shows how minor a fact it is.
He receieved the endorsement of the NRA for his ACTION as governor, in working on the AWB to make it acceptable to them.
That's why it's important to read the quotes you post, so you don't misstate them in your own post.
And when it turned out some people were confused by what he was saying, his campaign said clearly he was NOT endorsed in his run for governor.
He was also criticized for saying he had the NRA's support when he RAN for governor, and he's explained that they did some work for him, NOT that they endorsed him. Just as I have done some work for Fred, and have received a thank-you e-mail for MY SUPPORT, even though I have not endorsed him.
The silly thing is claiming that Romney would WANT to say the NRA endorsed him in his RUN for governor, but for some reason couldn't think of the word so he said "support" instead of "endorse".
Atually, in 1963 a 16-year-old could well NOT be aware that MLK wasn’t actually IN the Martin Luther King Freedom March that he was in.
Of course, it could also be that the march was in July I guess — this story has not entered in to some bizarre world where we can’t even pin down basic facts. Apparently multiple book and newspaper writers at the time couldn’t even figure out what MONTH King was marching, and yet you seem to think the entire nation was personally aware of EVERY march King was ever in.
I agree with you, but that oddly makes me believe his story — because if he had made it up to begin with (and was thus prone to lie), the clearly easy lie to tell now would be what makes most sense, which is what I thought was the case.
If he says something different, it would most likely be because the most probable explanation isn’t actually true, and he won’t lie about it just to make it go away.
IN any case, the Romney campaign staff did not do a good job for their candidate on this issue.
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