Another Mitt Romney Whopper

10:21 am EST December 20th, 2007 | News | Comments Off

Mitt Romney claimed “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King”. Except it isn’t true. It never happened. George Romney never marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Mitt Romney, like with almost everything else in his campaign, apparently made it up.

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.

No wonder Romney is embracing President Bush’s legacy so wholeheartedly. They’ve got the same less than casual relationship with the truth.