Maybe Romney had a dream

In 1978, he claimed that he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. himself.

Published December 21, 2007 5:22PM (EST)

OK, so maybe when Mitt Romney said that he "saw" his father marching with Martin Luther King Jr., he meant that he "saw" it happen in the figurative sense -- the "English literature major," "being aware of" sense -- even if, you know, it seems that his father never actually marched with King at all.

Let's just go with that for a minute.

We all speak imprecisely sometimes. Seriously. Who among us has not announced that we're in favor of abortion rights and gay rights and described ourselves as being pretty much lifelong hunters and then figured out that, actually, we're not any of those things at all? It happens to us all the time.

What we've never done, however, is claimed that we, ourselves, actually marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. -- not literally, not metaphorically, not even while watching the New England Patriots beat the Boston Celtics in the World Series.

Mitt Romney has. As the Boston Globe reports today, Romney told the Boston Herald in 1978: "My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."

The Romney campaign admits that the claim is false, which means only that it's now time for Romney himself to explain the sense in which it's kinda, sorta true.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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