Romney Lied About Father

[tommybill]

<p>Romney Lied About Father Marching With Martin Luther King Jr</p>

<p>Headline from 12/21 Huffington Post</p>

<p>Read story: [Politics</a> News and Opinion on The Huffington Post](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Politics)</p>

[Chedva]

<p>"It depends on what you mean by ‘saw’ ".</p>

<p>[Romney</a> says he never saw his father march with King - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/21/romney_never_saw_father_on_king_march/]Romney”>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/21/romney_never_saw_father_on_king_march/)</p>

<p>He says he used the term “saw” figuratively. Guess he used the term “marched with” figuratively, too.</p>

[tommybill]

<p>Susan Englander, assistant edi tor 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 Martin Luther King.”</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>Playing in the mud again are you, tommy? The take-away message that Mitt was trying to convey was that he is from a family background that is strong on civil rights, and not just for photo ops. This part of the message is 100% true. Despite your effort once again to smear anything Republican and to obfuscate the truth, the truth of the Romney family proactively supporting civil rights is undeniable.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>does proactive mean before 1978?
Why didn’t he just say figuratively in the first place?</p>

[curmudgeon]

<p>“My father stood shoulder to shoulder with MLK in his fight for…”
vs. “saw him marching with”. Both sound like typical poetic license to me (although he should have used mine instead.)</p>

<p>

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.</p>

<p>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, mentioning George Romney’s attendance but making no mention of King.

</p>

<p>Hmmm. I’ve got to give him a pass, and I don’t like him at all.</p>

[NYMomof2]

<p>I agree. I think Romney would be a terrible president, but I don’t believe he is or has ever been a racist. I grew up in Michigan and I believe his father was committed to civil rights.</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>Joe T. Darden, Detroit, Race And Uneven Development, 1987, p. 132):

“The establishment of these human relations groups came in the wake of several major events (besides the embarrassing racist practices of such suburbs as Dearborn), which took place in 1963 and helped galvanize interracial support and cooperation for integrated housing. The first event was the Metropolitan Conference on Open Occupancy held in Detroit in January 1963. The second event was the Martin Luther King ‘Freedom’ March in June of the same year, the spinoffs of which were several Detroit NAACP-sponsored interracial marches into Detroit suburbs to dramatize the need for black housing. … Governor George Romney gave the keynote speech at this conference, in which he pledged to use the power of the state to achieve housing equality in Michigan.”

</p>

<p>“Romney Praised At Civil Rights Rally In Atlanta,” The Chicago Defender, 9/30/67:

"Michigan Gov. George Romney walked into a Negro Civil Rights rally in the heart of Atlanta to the chants of ‘We Want Romney’ and to hear protests from Negroes about city schools. ‘They had invited me to come and I was interested in hearing things that would give me an insight into Atlanta,’ the Michigan Republican said. Led by Hosea Williams, a top aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the all-Negro rally broke into shouts and song when Romney arrived. ‘We’re tired of Lyndon Baines Johnson,’ Williams said from a pulpit in the Flipper Temple AME Church as Romney sat in a front row pew. ‘Johnson is sending black boys to Vietnam to die for a freedom that never existed,’ Williams said. Pointing to Romney, Williams brought the crowd of 200 to its feet when he said, ‘He may be the fella with a little backbone.’ Williams said Romney could be ‘the next President if he acts right.’

</p>

<p>Gordon Trowbridge and Oralandar Brand-Williams, “A Policy Of Exclusion,” Detroit News, 1/14/02

More than 100 angry white protesters balked at efforts by then-Housing Secretary George Romney, in car, to open their new neighborhoods to blacks.

</p>

<p>David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 2006, p. 575:

King spoke positively about the possible candidacies of republicans George Romney, Charles Percy, and Nelson Rockefeller. He also stressed the need for greater Afro-American unity, including reaching out to segments of the black community that were not committed to nonviolence.

</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>You rock fundingfather!</p>

[alwaysamom]

<p>I have to agree that the overanalysis of every word the candidates utter has been brought to a ridiculous level, but it does seem to be an issue with Romney, moreso than others, and I’m not sure why.</p>

<p>[Romney</a> backpedals on statements — again - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071221/ap_on_el_pr/romney_embellishment]Romney”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071221/ap_on_el_pr/romney_embellishment)</p>

[kluge]

<p>FF: I agree with you that Romney shouldn’t be skewered for a technically false statement, the sense of which is true. </p>

<p>Now, would you ever be willing to apply that principle to anyone on the other side of the political spectrum?</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>

Now, would you ever be willing to apply that principle to anyone on the other side of the political spectrum?

</p>

<p>Can you find any instances where I did do such a thing? It seems like I am the only one from either side of the spectrum who has stood up for Bill Clinton in defense of mini’s repeated and exagerated allegation of genocide.</p>

[tommybill]

<p>I posted the quote from the Huffington Post knowing someone would make the point made in post #4 and hoping someone would ask the question ask in post 11.</p>

<p>I bet the Women of Eastwick would have been agitated to the point of apoplexy had Lady H made this type of rhetorical mistake. </p>

<p>Personally, I thing we should all give Mitt a pass on this one.</p>

<p>I remember Geo. Romney and had respect for him…The republican party rejected him you will recall…</p>

[thisoldman]

<p>^^ #12. What I thought was going to be a day of idle thoughts is now one that I spend a good deal in thinking about your callous remark.</p>

[barrons]

<p>It is hardly callous being factual.</p>

[Chedva]

<p>As a Massachusetts resident with no great love for my former governor, I would give him half a pass on this rhetoric - technically untrue, but does convey the idea that his father was strongly involved in civil rights. But he should choose his words much more carefully. “Marching with” King gives a very different mental image than “fully supported” does.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I’m not so quick to give him a pass on his “top 25% of high schoolers get full tuition at state schools” comments. Technically this one’s true (if they also scored high enough on the high-stakes graduation test requirement), but fundamentally gives the wrong impression. As governor, Romney promised never to raise taxes, but he never met a “fee” he didn’t like. He stacked so many “fees” and charges onto the costs of state schools so that tuition is such a small percentage of costs that the scholarships are negligible (about $2000 of the $16,000 total costs of attending UMass Amherst, for example). That’s far from a “free” education as he implied.</p>

[mini]

<p>“I agree. I think Romney would be a terrible president, but I don’t believe he is or has ever been a racist.”</p>

<p>No idea whether “he has racism in his heart”. What did he teach as stake president? Since he “wholeheartedly” embraces his Church’s doctrine, does he believe in “the curse of Cain”?</p>

[Hanna]

<p>“I would give him half a pass on this rhetoric”</p>

<p>Same here. I’m a lawyer, and even I think this kind of semantic dissection is usually not worth our time.</p>

[1sokkermom]

<p>Was it Bill Clinton that said that he grew up as a poor black child? ;)</p>

<p>It didn’t hurt his quest for the presidency.</p>

[mini]

<p>The question regarding Romney is not about his possible racism, but about his character.</p>