'08 Alert: Mitt Misspoke on King March

Globe, Times wonder if Romney has problem sticking to the facts
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 21, 2007 5:29 PM CST
'08 Alert: Mitt Misspoke on King March
This photo provided by the Romney for President, Inc., shows George Romney, left, and son Mitt Romney, right, in their Detroit, Mich., home in 1957. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Romney family)   (Associated Press)

Mitt Romney backtracked yesterday from claims that he saw his father march with Martin Luther King in the 1960s, saying he used "saw" as “a figure of speech." The Boston Globe dissects the partial mea culpa, noting that the candidate couldn't have "seen" it even figuratively because Romney père never walked an inch with the civil-rights leader. Worse, Mitt “went a step further” in 1978, the piece notes, declaring, “My father and I marched with” King.

The New York Times' Michael Luo senses a pattern, alleging that Romney is “prone to exaggeration, taking what is essentially a kernel of truth and stretching it to bolster his case.” The evidence: Romney claimed a nonexistent 2002 NRA endorsement, professed to being a lifelong hunter when he’d only hunted twice, and said he “got tough on” methamphetamines when his bill in fact died in legislature. (More Mitt Romney stories.)

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