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 ...
So if Hillary or Obama claimed to have marched with MLK you would call that trivial?
Or is it only trivial to you when Republicans don't tell the truth?
No, we’re trying to weed out any GOP candidate who gives the Dems a fatal amount of ammo to use against him in the general election.
Mitt, Rudy and Huckabee have been providing them with entire amories.
In isolation, perhaps. As part of a larger pattern of lies, exaggerations, and embellishments, not so much.
‘So if Hillary or Obama claimed to have marched with MLK you would call that trivial?’
Depends on if Hillary impersonated King’s voice while doing so....(chuckle)
‘Or is it only trivial to you when Republicans don’t tell the truth?’
I find the whole thing trivial, not up to the standard I use for screaming ‘liar’ at the top of my lungs, sorry.
So I’m not suppose to take Romney seriously as a candidate because of this? Okay.
Who should I take ‘seriously’ then in your view?
‘Mitt, Rudy and Huckabee have been providing them with entire amories’
I know I won’t vote for Huckabee or Guiliani, I’m still keeping an open mind on Romney.
Who do you think I should support?
They did not say it was a lie. They made a statement that he did NOT march with King. That means it was incorrect.
Also, while the statement from 1978 that Mitt marched in a march with MLK was incorrect, the fact that he TOLD this to the newspaper reporter in 1978 IS correct, which proves that he said it before his father died, and that he believed it long before he was running for any office.
So the claims that he made it up after his father died, or that he lied about it just to get elected, are now proven false. Just more claims about this that have been shown false.
In fact, the ONLY thing in this entire episode that has turned out to not be false is that it appears in fact that the “march” that Romney and King were “in” was in fact two marches 6 days apart.
I’m sure that in your family lore, you don’t have a single story that, if thouroughly investigated, might turn out to be remembered incorrectly. But this happens in my family, and probably in almost every normal family. You tell the stories again and again, and they change, and the telling becomes the memory.
We all KNOW this, which is why we fight the MSM when they tell false stories, because if not corrected, in 30 years everybody will believe them.
In this case, we have a story that is almost exactly true, but wrong in one point — whether MLK was physically IN the civil rights march that day, rather than 6 days earlier (heck, we even know that Romney was asked to BE IN THE MARCH with MLK).
That incorrect point has been considered true for a long time. Broder wrote it into a published book, and Romney repeated it in 1978 in a newspaper interview. His brother believed it was true, and it seems his father believed it as well, or at least we have no indication he ever tried to correct the book or the newspaper article.
Why would Romney purposely lie about this in 1978, and again in the 1990s and in 2007? It makes no sense. It DOES make sense that he believed it, and has repeated the story because he believed it, and only NOW does he know it was wrong.
Just like Allen repeatedly denied his mother was Jewish, because she had always said it, only to learn that she WAS jewish. Once he knew she was Jewish, he corrected his statements from before. And the moonbats said he had ‘lied about it’ before. But he was telling what he thought was the truth, because that was the story he was told.
But rather than the fred supporters volunteering to raise money, or get signatures, or call voters, they are all here trying to blow that miniscule inaccuracy into some grand conspiracy.
Why would you say you marched with MLK if you didn’t? That’s not something private that no one else could disprove.
I think if you peruse anyone in public life long enough, you’ll find something objectionable, real or imagined.
Name any candidate, past or present, and you can do this. ANY CANDIDATE.
So who should I support this time around?
Right. In other words, Romney lied.
Self-aggrandizement.
I heard he had said he pulled a girl’s pigtail, but in fact he had not actually pulled the girl’s pigtail, but had just grabbed it and she moved her head. But all these years he’s lied about “pulling” it. Now he’s pretending that “pulling” really means “holding still while the girl moved her head”.
I wish I was into making up stuff like this, it’s a lot of fun.
If you nominate this guy the Dems are going to go into heavy rotation in commercials with Mitt claiming that he marched with Martin Luther King Jr.
Or better yet. “When Mitt Romney gave a speech about his Mormon Faith, he lied to you.”
I am sure both of those messages will go over very well!
“Holy prevarication, Batman! The Mittster is a worse serial liar than even “Cambodia John” Kerry.”
Given that Romney’s entire recent conversion to conservatism is in doubt, being caught in this lie is a serious problem for Myth.
Everything except the "with" part? Which should have said "6 days after"?
Of the current candidate set, I'm quite sure the "serial liar" and/or "flip-flopper" label could be easily applied to Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee. The others, not so much.
McCain may be a nutjob, but he's not prone to embellishment. Thompson's a straight-shooter. I have no reason to doubt Paul's sincerity, only his sanity. And Hunter also seems to be a straight-shooter. Pick one of them.
So I’m not suppose to take Romney seriously as a candidate because of this? Okay.
Who should I take ‘seriously’ then in your view?
Oh, come now. In his HEART he felt he had marched with Mr. King. Give a guy a break.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.