Steve Benen is reporting this morning that Martin Luther King and George Romney didn't march together all those years ago. Apparently the two nice little old ladies the Romney campaign brought forward weren't really remembering what happened. George Romney, who no doubt was a strong proponent of civil rights, did participate in a civil rights march in Grosse Point on Saturday, June 29, 1963 but Martin Luther King wasn't there. He was talking to the AFL-CIO.
According to the Boston Phoenix
Two women contacted the Mitt Romney campaign this week, offering their memories of seeing Romney’s father march with Martin Luther King Jr., in Grosse Point Michigan in 1963. Campaign officials were well aware that the women were mistaken. Yet, they directed those women to tell their stories to a Politico reporter. The motives and memories of the two women are unknown and irrelevant; the motives of the campaign, however, were obvious — to spread information they knew to be untrue, for the good of the candidate.Emphasis added.
This story gets stranger and stranger, but if the Boston Phoenix is right Mitt Romney might just have kissed his campaign goodbye.
UPDATE: The more I think about this the more I worry about the story. Why in the name of God would the Romney campaign advance the two women if they didn't think they were telling the truth? There is simply no upside for Romney. I have no idea what the Boston Phoenix's motivation might be. Do you? Somebody is being zoomed, the question is who is zooming who. I would like to see some real reporting on this story. Maybe we have to wait tell Wednesday to check with real historians.
