Romney's Claim That Father Marched With MLK Questioned

In the most-watched speech of his political career, speaking on "Faith in America" at College Station, Texas, earlier this month, Mitt Romney evoked the strongest of all symbolic claims to civil-rights credentials: "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."

He has repeated the claim several times recently, most prominently to Tim Russert on Meet the Press . But, while the late George W. Romney, a four-term governor of Michigan, can lay claim to a strong record on civil rights, the Phoenix can find no evidence that the senior Romney actually marched with King, nor anything in the public record suggesting that he ever claimed to do so.

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.

Asked about the specifics of George Romney's march with MLK, Mitt Romney's campaign told the Phoenix that it took place in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. That jibes with the description proffered by David S. Broder in a Washington Post column written days after Mitt's College Station speech.

Broder, in that column, references a 1967 book he co-authored on the Republican Party, which included a chapter on George Romney. It includes a one-line statement that the senior Romney "has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit."

But that account is incorrect. King never marched in Grosse Pointe, according to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society, and had not appeared in the town at all at the time the Broder book was published. "I'm quite certain of that," says Suzy Berschback, curator of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society. (Border was not immediately available for comment.)

Berschback also believes that George Romney never appeared at a protest, march, or rally in Grosse Pointe. "We're a small town," she says. "Governors don't come here very often, except for fundraisers."

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Comments

[lovethesinner]

05:06 AM on 12/21/2007

One of the qualities a voter wants in a leader is to be competent. Able to perform his job.

If, at times, a President must tell a LIE to accomplish some important greater good, isn't it important that he be good at it?

What's amazing about the Romney MLK Jr. gaffe is how incredibly transparent the manipulation is. It's like a child's finger painting... in places you can actually see FINGER PRINTS and even though the painting has bold flourishes, it's completely without meaning to one who is viewing it.

Romney is trying to absolve his guilt at being a missionary for a backward cult of racists when his father, and the rest of the country was busy making America a nation of laws and justice.

What's even better about the whole story is it's showing David Broder to be a bag man for the powers that be. Broder's lies were more artful, but just as childish.

It's hard to say what's more dangerous for America, a President who can't lie to save his ass, or a journalist who lies beautifully to keep his job.

[Rachel36]

05:50 PM on 12/20/2007

So Mitt Romney's daddy marched with one of Satan's spawn (figurativley speaking)? What the freak kind of embellishment is that? Fugartively! How about I put my fugartive foot up your fugartive ass and say I didn't! The lie was so easy to smoke out its insulting.

[Bongborg]

04:31 PM on 12/20/2007

My Daddy marched with Dr. King, too. Well, not exactly. He watched it on TV. But he supported him. Well, actually he said someone should shoot him. But then someone did, and Daddy went to the funeral and prayed. Well, actually he bought beer and partied. But I turned out ok, and I'm sure Mitt is ok too. Daddy said so.

[poeticjustice4all]

03:16 PM on 12/20/2007

Well, Huff po-po'd me -- so I'll take a different tack and try again . . .

Even if it were true that Romney's father "marched" with MLK Jr., that wouldn't change a darn thing concerning the MORMON'S bizarre beliefs about Black people.

The facts are the facts, and the MORMONS do not deny the facts: MORMONS believe Black people are the cursed descendants of SATAN. They've stated this belief repeatedly and in no uncertain terms.

MORMONS have flat-out stated that they believe the reason Black folks have darker skin than Whites is because Blacks are cursed. And this is not a side-issue or incidental tenet of the MORMON church. It's central to their teaching -- right along with their sexist beliefs about girls and women.

That's the reality -- and I don't care who Romney's father did or did not march with.

[zizyphus]

03:08 PM on 12/20/2007

Another fantasy from the bedrizzled mind of Mutt Romney.

As he was driving that long, twelve hour journey on vacation, with dog diarrhea streaming down the windshield, Mutt bravely started the windshield wipers, and through the haze, saw a vision before him of his dearly departed Daddy, arm in arm with MLK, singing We shall overcome...

[ChristopherLib]

02:24 PM on 12/20/2007

Oh boy. Flip flopper Mitt having a problem telling the truth. That's obviously not a surprise, but what he lied about makes it all the more disgusting.

[SubparDude]

01:09 PM on 12/20/2007

More disturbing -- those tears welling in Mitt's peepers as he fabricates the whole story.

Moral: "Sincerity's the thing, once you can fake that, the rest is easy." -- John Mitchell, Nixon's AG and Indicted Co-conspirator.

[1differentdrummer]

11:13 AM on 12/20/2007

The guy's a legend in his own mind.

[Kane]

11:10 AM on 12/20/2007

Keep digging!

[RobDavies]

10:21 AM on 12/20/2007

You mean Mitt Romney lied?!? How odd for him.