George Romney, Martin Luther King and Mitt Romney's Recovered Memory
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in 2008 | Mitt Romney — Comments (79) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In his much-heralded and well-received speech on "Faith in America," Mitt Romney claimed as an example of his parents' moral example to him that "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."* On Sunday's Meet The Press, Gov. Romney repeated the same claim to deflect questions about his church's exclusionary policies - for context, I'll reprint the full Q&A with Tim Russert:
MR. RUSSERT: You, you raise the issue of color of skin. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, desegregated all our public schools. In 1964 civil rights laws giving full equality to black Americans. And yet it wasn't till 1978 that the Mormon church decided to allow blacks to participate fully. Here was the headlines in the papers in June of '78. "Mormon Church Dissolves Black Bias. Citing new revelation from God, the president of the Mormon Church decreed for the first time black males could fully participate in church rites." You were 31 years old, and your church was excluding blacks from full participation. Didn't you think, "What am I doing part of an organization that is viewed by many as a racist organization?"
GOV. ROMNEY: I'm very proud of my faith, and it's the faith of my fathers, and I certainly believe that it is a, a faith--well, it's true and I love my faith. And I'm not going to distance myself in any way from my faith. But you can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at, at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mom was a tireless crusader for civil rights. You may recall that my dad walked out of the Republican convention in 1964 in San Francisco in part because Barry Goldwater, in his speech, gave my dad the impression that he was someone who was going to be weak on civil rights. So my dad's reputation, my mom's and my own has always been one of reaching out to people and not discriminating based upon race or anything else. And so those are my fundamental core beliefs, and I was anxious to see a change in, in my church.
I can remember when, when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio, and I pulled over and, and literally wept. Even at this day it's emotional, and so it's very deep and fundamental in my, in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that. My faith has also always told me that, in the eyes of God, every individual was, was merited the, the fullest degree of happiness in the hereafter, and I, and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.
(See here for Mark Kilmer's review of Sunday's MTP).
Well, it turns out that this is not accurate. An investigation by the Boston Phoenix, a left-leaning independent newspaper, turned up no evidence that the elder Gov. Romney ever marched with Dr. King, and Romney's campaign now says this wasn't intended to be taken as, well, fact:
On Wednesday, Romney's campaign said his recollections of watching his father, an ardent civil rights supporter, march with King were meant to be figurative.
"He was speaking figuratively, not literally," Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said of the candidate.
Like so many things Romney, this is a new one from Mitt:
Nor did Mitt Romney ever previously claim that this took place, until long after his father passed away in 1995 - not even when defending accusations of the Mormon church's discriminatory past during his 1994 Senate campaign.
Now, in fairness to Romney, he seems to have had some basis for believing that this had happened, though that doesn't explain how he thinks he saw it happen:
Romney's campaign cited various historical articles, as well as a 1967 book written by Stephen Hess and Washington Post political columnist David Broder, as confirmation that George Romney marched with King in Grosse Pointe in 1963.
"He has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb," Hess and Broder wrote in "The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP."
Free Press archives, however, showed no record of King marching in Grosse Pointe in 1963 or of then-Gov. Romney taking part in King's historic march down Woodward Avenue in June of that year.
George Romney told the Free Press at the time that he didn't take part because it was on a Sunday and he avoided public appearances on the Sabbath because of his religion.
Romney did participate in a civil rights march protesting housing bias in Grosse Pointe just six days after the King march. According to the Free Press account, however, King was not there.
Broder could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
The Boston Phoenix reported Wednesday it could find no evidence that Romney and King ever marched together.
Mitt Romney's older brother, Detroit attorney Scott Romney, said he recalls his father telling him the elder Romney marched with King, possibly in 1963, but he could not remember exactly when the event took place.
Fehrnstrom called the Romney brothers' recollection and the historical materials a "pretty convincing case that George Romney did march with Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders in Michigan."
The governor's record was one of supporting civil rights. He helped create the state's first civil rights commission and marched at the head of a protest parade in Detroit days after violence against civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala., in 1965.
This latest unforced error is, however, precisely the problem I identified as Romney campaigning like a Democrat: candidates who feel compelled to demonstrate their authenticity by reference to their own biography, rather than by citing a consistent set of principled stands on the issues, invariably fall into the temptation to stretch that biography to cover things that never actually happened. We saw this repeatedly with Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry - remember Clinton's fables about watching non-existent church burnings in Arkansas? - and we Republicans rightly lambasted them for it.
If we nominate Romney and he walks into more traps like this in the general election campaign, we can't say we weren't warned.
* - The link above is to NPR's website; I'm having trouble getting it to load at Romney's own site but I don't want to jump to conclusions. (UPDATE: It's loading now, so it looks like just a technical hiccup on my end).
Dan, Erick, and the liberals at dKos are all trading talking points this week.
All in an effort to salvage the campaign of...Rudy?
Anyway, thanks for setting the story straight.
Romney/Barbour 2008
Nice press release. Why doesn't it state "FACT: George Romney marched with Martin Luther King, Jr."? Because it NEVER happened and Flipper NEVER saw it happen like he said he did (
This misses the mark.
George Romney marched with MLK. External evidence tends to confirm that. You acknowledge this, but claim anyway that Romney's MTP statement "my father marched with MLK" is false. Huh?
Then you say even though it is false, Romney has a basis to believe it is true, because evidence tends to show it is true.
Then you make a big deal out of a figurative use of "saw."
It appears that they didn't even know that he did that -- that's the criticism here.
Oh, by the way -- Mitt pulled over and wept in his car on the way home from law school when blacks were admitted by the Church in 1978? That's interesting, considering he graduated from law school in 1975...
Mitt needs to cut out comments like this. That's just not believable to me - and I support the guy.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Do you believe that? It's true.
The policy of excluding people of African descent from the priesthood was a tremendous burden to many Latter-day Saints, particularly those who had been missionaries in the 60s and early 70s. It pitted their inclusive instincts against their respect for the leaders and policies of the Church. It was a huge joy and relief when the policy was changed. Pulling over to the side of the road and crying was a common response for those who heard by car radio.
I don't understand what you're saying. I don't know what the "that" in "he did that" is supposed to be.
As for the other:
"I was driving home from — I think it was law school, but I was driving home"
Saying Romney lied here or even made a mistake is about as persuasive Dan's point.
I heard him say that he was driving home.
Whether or not he said he was driving home from "school" or "work" hardly seems material.
People are really straining to attack Mitt this week.
And whether his campaign called it a metaphor or not is totally irrelevant. Obviously, the person on the phone was unaware of the facts which Jbonham brought to light. Facts which were known to Mitt but not to Joe PR Guy.
Can we please talk about taxes, immigration, the war on terror?
Parsing lines from "Meet the Press" hardly seems productive.
Especially since it's the liberals who are promoting this dissension.
While we're eating our own, they are attacking whichever Republican looks like he might get the nomination.
Their eyes are on the prize and our eyes are on the cute blonde cheerleader.
Romney/Barbour 2008
Because once we have a nominee, it's too late.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
What "some of you" are doing is borrowing lefty talking points against Romney to use against him here on the most prominent Republican/Conservative blog in the country. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
We should NOT be ashamed for vetting our candidates as thoroughly as possible *before* choosing our nominee. Dan's right--it will be too late after the nominee is chosen to suddenly figure out that we might have made a mistake. Now's the time to hash it out, and fast. If a candidate can't stand up to his own party's challenges and scrutiny, we him out of the way asap. If Mitt can weather this, he'll be stronger because of it. Based on his pattern on this kind of thing, though, he's going to do it again. So we need to know how he handles it. Spinning semantic distinctions ("It depends on the meaning of the word 'saw'") is a Clintonian thing to do and raises all kinds of warning flags for me.
If Democrats had listened to us, they might have avoided a terrible nominee.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
... of this statement coming from the keyboard of a Rudy supporter is somewhat, well, rich.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
I can remember when, when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio, and I pulled over and, and literally wept. Even at this day it's emotional, and so it's very deep and fundamental in my, in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that. My faith has also always told me that, in the eyes of God, every individual was, was merited the, the fullest degree of happiness in the hereafter, and I, and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.
but I can live with the disappointment.
I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Emphasis added, since you obviously missed the phrase last time.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
"This misses the mark.
George Romney marched with MLK. External evidence tends to confirm that."
You've been duped by the Romney press release. George Romney marched at a civil rights rally. MLK was NOT present (and the Romney press release does not claim he was, although it does misleadingly give that impression). If you have evidence to the contrary, please identify it.
You are reversing the burden of proof in a particularly absurd way. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
In the second place, people often talk about 'marching with' someone when they are talking about marching for a particular cause. It doesn't necessarily indicate that the two people were in the same city.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
That's silly. The poster said external evidence tends to confirm that George Romney marched with MLK. I've asked for it. He hasn't provided it. If you want to make credible statements, you need evidence to support those statements. That's elementary.
As to your second point, I thought the official explanation was to parse the word "saw." Has the excuse factory flip-flopped and now decided that parsing the words "marching with" is the better strategy?
Well, it turns out that this is not accurate. An investigation by the Boston Phoenix, a left-leaning independent newspaper, turned up no evidence that the elder Gov. Romney ever marched with Dr. King
A clear example of reversing the burden of proof with which you are playing along. What the OP then goes on to say is that Romney does seem to have had good reason for believing this and that other members of Romney's family have made the statement.
So let's see. Several members of George Romney's family believe it and there is no evidence to the contrary, so naturally you assume they are all lying.
I thought the official explanation was to parse the word "saw." Has the excuse factory flip-flopped and now decided that parsing the words "marching with" is the better strategy?
I haven't a clue what the "excuse factory" thinks. This is not Huckabee we are talking about, so excuses don't really come into it. To anyone familiar with ordinary English usage there is nothing out of the ordinary to explain.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
That explanation makes perfect sense to me. His use of "saw" is thoroughly consistent with the English language for describing what his father did.
It's clear that one can find a very literal interpretation of his words that put a lie in them. Let me watch you for a while and I'll do the same to you. But then you will argue that your intent was well represented by your words and I should have known better than to take them in the most literal sense, especially after you made it clear you don't seek any credit for the putative claim. And if I am reasonable, I will grant you that.
Wasn't actually in the room when he died. Hadn't seen him since the previous weekend.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
that Mitt would have floated this as fact if he knew it to be untrue. He would have known that someone would eventually expose the lie.
Unfortunately, his press office didn't do him any favors by saying that he "meant it figuratively." such comments only indicate that he knowingly lied.
Governors and statewide elected officials have hundreds of public events every year, so it's understandable that while Mitt may not have been present at the event, he had little reason to doubt what he had been told by his brother or what was written in that history book.
"I find it hard to believe that Mitt would have floated this as fact if he knew it to be untrue. He would have known that someone would eventually expose the lie."
ha! Will you please clean up the coffee on the floor? I'm sure every campaign would completley disagree with this point of view. Mitt has twisted the facts against other candidates in mailings and ad's throughout the campaign.
the first comment in this thread. Romney won't suffer from this at all because it's a non-issue.
Who's your guy? I'd venture to guess you're a Huckanut.
It's probably got to be frustrating for you to see everything thrown at Romney to no effect when the attacks on Huck are very clearly working. Try again, buddy.
...to criticize Romney, even if you don't have all the facts and you have to pluck nonsense from liberals to make your points. How unfortunate...
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
-Winston Churchill
are direct quotes from Romney and direct quotes from his own campaign "nonsense from liberals"?
This is not that big a story on its own but it's part of a consistent pattern and one I don't want to see us saddled with all next year.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
...I have to say, though, that it has more to do with your commentary on Romney than Romney himself.
Your consistent pattern is to make a bunch of throw-away attacks against Romney. Whenever one is refuted as false, silly, misleading, or overblown, you point to the laundry list of other throw-away attacks as if it adds up to something.
I'm not saying that you have never made any good criticisms of Romney. What I am saying is that piling on weak arguments against him doesn't bolster your criticisms; it dilutes your criticisms.
I can only wonder why this wasn't Part 6 in your 5-part series on everything wrong with Mitt Romney.
And a recommend from Erick, I see. How terribly unsurprising.
Good Sweet Mother of God can we just have these freaking primaries and caucuses already and be done with this nightmare?
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Sicker, since I'm increasingly convinced that we have at least two candidates in the field who can win and are prepared to be Commander in Chief - Rudy and McCain - and two who are neither - Mitt and Huck - and the latter two are in the driver's seat and Mitt is probably going to win the nomination, so we can all re-live 1996 and the 2000 Senate race.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Though why you think a McCain nomination would be in any way unlike the 1996 race is a bit of a mystery to me, but there you go. And I'm still at a loss to understand why Rudy seems to be imploding.
Aside - I heard Duncan Hunter on the radio this morning (WTKK out of Boston). Man, I really wish the guy had a shot. Didn't know is son (3-tours Iraq/Afghanistan with the Marines) is running for congress until today. Great guy. Like I said, completely off the subject.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
1. I liked Hunter too, although I like him less so after prolonged exposure to his China fixation. He'd be a great SECDEF.
2. McCain speaks in complete sentences. That's a major change from the candidates we have run in the last five elections.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
It's what he says with those complete sentences that ticks me off. In other words, I was sick of the "straight-talk express" in 2000 and it's not grown well on me in the 7-years hence.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
You say "candidates who feel compelled to demonstrate their authenticity by reference to their own biography, rather than by citing a consistent set of principled stands on the issues..." is evidence of someone campaigning as a Democrat?
This coming from a Giuliani supporter?
Wow, that's some disconnect.
which is, to put it mildly, rather different from what Romney is doing.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Something for everyone, just look at the floor directory.
Now I do go to department stores. But they have their limitations when you need something special.
And in 2008, we need something special.
Romney doesn't have the personal baggage of Rudy.
He doesn't have a history of throwing conservatives under the bus that McCain does.
He doesn't have a history of releasing rapists from jail because of a professed conversion.
He can win.
And he did stand up for family values as governor of Massachussets even though doing so made him completely un-re-electable.
Romney/Barbour 2008
What family values?
Requiring a 50 dollar co-pay on the TAXPAYER FUNDED ABORTIONS in his budgets?
He may not have more than one wife (guess he was born in the wrong century) but that doesn't mean you promote family values.
It was distasteful, disgraceful, an emotional response, BUT it was also the type of attack which Mitt has been unleashing. BOTH MY POST AND HIS ADS ARE MEANT TO SMEAR.
But I guess it only matters when the horse your pulling for is getting distorted.
*For what its worth, I am better than that and I w/draw the statement...sometimes my sense of humor is a little off color
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
of the wake vortex following Mitt et al, and it's not very edifying.
I will vote for Mitt. I hope he will be a good candidate. He has great executive experience. His experience running a government is limited, and he borrowed heavily from Gov William Weld's playbook (a Boston Brahmin if there ever was one.)
Rudy WROTE the playbook to turn around NYC.
As far as personal baggage, if the United Kingdom can have Prince Charles as King, I think the morals of our republic will survive the baggage of a Rudy Giuliani. Especially since he will help the Republic survive.
First, I think you meant "above" not "below" in reference to the geographic relationship to the comments.
Second, I'm not sure the wake to which you're referring is any worse than the "Give us Rudy and we bolt" sorts of comments/diaries/etc. we were treated to in the mid-fall. I'm not justifying that sentiment, mind - just saying.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
The wake vortex is something I can't quite explain in a comprehensive way. But when Mitt and his supporters appear, a tremendous amount of turmoil is seems to be left behind in the wake of the attacks and counterattacks and counter-counterattacks, etc. And it's very hard to figure out what it was about when each episode is done.
If Fred had more of a pulse, he'd be looking awfully good right now!
That's because often, as in this case, it wasn't about anything to begin with. If you're having a hard time figuring out what this was about, then you're seeing things clearly.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Rudy is trying to run from his record - at least as far as his family is concerned.
Had to sneak in to see his daughter graduate - and she supports Obama? Makes Clintons look more wholesome.
politics.
I would like to focus on something else (are you listening, Huck & Co) - the various church establishments got behind civil rights kind of late in the game, and their congregations even later, but we all got there.
Let's move on.
I am so anti-Huckabee that I have no credibility when I am criticizing it, even though everything I say, think, etc, feels to me that it is fact (even right now I am sure there's nothing I criticize him on that isn't fact).
You, are so anti-Romney (based on numerous posts of yours) that you have no credibility when you criticize him.
I've accepted this in regard to Huck and you should accept it in regards to Romney.
* PRIESTCRAFT is thus defined: “The stratagem and frauds of priests; fraud or imposition in religious concerns. Management of selfish and ambitious priests to gain wealth and power, or to impose upon the credulity of others.”
If he did or didn't - who cares? The Romney family believes it happened - good enough, at least to such a degree that they ALL tell the story. There is no evidence? That's not the point, is it? The point is that Gov. Romney, Sr. and Gov. Romney, Jr. both support civil rights, oppose racial discrimination, and believe all men are created equal.
This "news" piece isn't news, it's a non-story.
If Mitt said he marched with King and didn't, that is something else entirely. Rip George Romney for not telling the truth if indeed he never really marched with King. Criticizing the son is nuts.
I do not think this is a huge deal. However, "If he did or didn't - who cares? The Romney family believes it happened - good enough, at least to such a degree that they ALL tell the story" is not a defense that we as conservatives should employ.
It's no different than those who still claim the Rather forgeries contain truth - "fake but accurate" all over again.
This is trash.
Its central premise is that George Romney didn't march with MLK.
That central premise is wrong.
Please stop repeating liberal lies.
Romney/Barbour 2008
how I first felt about him a little over 11 months ago, slick, smooth car salesman....I just cannot get over the "ick" factor when I hear him talk.
Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion
Maybe people out there are used to almost 8 years of listening to GW, but I can't see how speaking in a reasoned, intelligent, well educated manner is seen as being a negative. I've met a LOT of salesmen over the years, car or otherwise, and I've never heard a one who spoke as well as Mitt Romney.
When a guy who has been accused of being willing to say anything to get elected gets caught saying something that isn't accurate, his supporters go balistic. Crying foul at having it discussed at all.
At this time (and more facts may surface later) it appears that his father may have marched with MLK, just not:
When he said he did or Where he said he did.
His campaign staff's remark about "figuratively" is just a horrifyingly bad response to the controversy. Throw some more gasoline on the fire.
You've got a lot of Americans that don't have enough faith in their elected leaders right now. Integrity is going to be an issue in 2008, so Mitt needs to step up and straighten this mess out, once and for all.
"Truth can stand on its own and needs no help from half-truths, shades of grey, white-lies, or plain lies"
It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792
And I'd appreciate a simple answer. Given the level to which you've taken your personal crusade against Mitt Romney, which now totals somewhere over 10,000 words on this blog and your own blog, and your obvious qualifications as a polemicist and an attorney, I'd appreciate a direct answer.
Who do you support for the nomination?
I ask not because I think your posts are frivolous; I've read them all and I've printed them out and I'm working on my own response to them. A lot of the arguments you make are persuasive, and they showcase your legal training and your overqualification as a "mere blogger."
So who is your guy?
You haven't recommended Rick's blog on coming out for Fred, and that could be an oversight, but perhaps not.
So which candidate is it?
I'm not trying to speak for Dan, but I think he's a Rudy guy.
Rudy Giuliani, the candidate of Republican compromise.
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
-Winston Churchill
see the last comment in installment 5 for example.
I started to post that to you last night, but I figured you would rather hear it from him.
I've been supporting Rudy openly since Feb 2007. I linked back to the "why I'm for Rudy" piece in each of the 5 installments of the Romney saga. Ain't no big secret.
Yes, I'm having second thoughts, and considering McCain. I'd vote for any of the Big Five in the general, but as I see it, we have three acceptable candidates - Rudy, McCain and Fred - and two unacceptable ones.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Titled "From flip-flop to see-saw"
About as tortured as the charges being leveled against him here, but at least those aren't on YouTube.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Is this really who we want up against the Clinton smear machine? GITMO detainees have undergone a lot less than that response.
quote:
Romney faced snickers in April after his staff said he had been hunting on only two occasions despite his telling a New Hampshire voter, "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." Romney later said he had hunted more than twice but only for "small varmints"
www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/21/america/NA-POL-US-Romney-Embellishmen...
"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."
www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/21/america/NA-POL-US-Romney-Embellishmen...
This guy, you can tell, can say anything (he thinks) because he knows he's so smooth he can spin it later.
When I first heard this, it was a snippet of Combes and guests ripping Romney. It fed into the Romney makes-it-up meme and I thought he had sunk himself. Then I reviewed the facts presented here and discover that there is no there there in the criticism.
So for me, the whole thing back-fires on those that are criticizing him. It suggests the conclusion that their negative perceptions are in a feedback loop with misconceptions. The more I see of this, like Jeff's law school jab above, the more I become inured.
However, I do see from this that Mitt has a bad political problem. Namely, he has gen'ed up enemies. I am waiting to see whether he has the required political moxie to deal with this. Clinton donned Teflon. What has Mitt got. Does he have enough skill to turn the tables?
This is just a straight time line, no editorializing. It's amazing.
Sunday Romney welled up on "Meet the Press" when he told Tim Russert that he pulled over to the side of the road and literally wept when he heard that the Mormon Church had reversed it's position on blacks in the church. He buttressed that story by saying that he saw his father March with Martin Luther King.
A day or so later we find out that Romney did not in fact ever see his father march with King.
Romney responded yesterday:
"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," he said. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar and it's very common and I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/romney-questioned-about-ki...
He also said:
"I saw him in the figurative sense," he told reporters today.
"The reference of seeing my father lead in civil rights," he addedd, "and seeing my father march with Martin Luther King is in the sense of this figurative awareness of and recognition of his leadership."
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/12/romney_did_he_s....
Then today this came out in the Boston Globe:
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.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/21/romney_never_saw_f...
I haven't had a chance to read through your whole thing, a busy day but I thought I would post the Romney press release they just put up:
www.mymanmitt.com
www.race42008.com
www.illinoisreview.com