After stories came out showing that Romney’s father, former Michigan Governor George Romney, never marched with MLK as Mitt has claimed several times, people stepped forward to “verify” that George Romney indeed marched with MLK, “hand in hand” down the street. Then, to top it off, Romney posted these clippings which very much give the impression that it did happen.

It was enough to fool TPM (temporarily–they posted updates), as they initially posted that “it’s looking like” it all really happened. However, a closer look at the evidence suggests that Romney is simply playing with the truth more than ever. Look at the press sources Romney uses; Romney lists a press account from the Detroit Free Press alongside with a citation from Stephen Hess and David Broder claiming that Romney’s father marched “with” MLK. It certainly makes it seem like they were side by side.

Except they weren’t. Look at the Detroit Free Press citation and every other citation on the page, and you’ll see that aside from the Hess & Broder quote, none say that Romney marched with MLK. In fact, one of them says outright that Romney’s father was at the rally with “Hosea Williams, a top aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” which makes it pretty evident that MLK wasn’t there. But by featuring the Broder quote prominently, Romney obviously wants people to believe that the claims of his father marching “with” King were true, when they were not. And none of this addresses Romney’s past claim that he himself marched with his father and King. Not to mention that the only writers that put Romney & King together–Hess and Broder–cannot recall their source for that claim, which probably was simply them taking Romney at his word and printing it as if it were fact.

Romney claimed:

“My dad marched with Martin Luther King.” — Meet the Press, 12/16/2007

“I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.” — Romney’s “Faith In America” speech, GHW Bush Presidential Library, 12/06/2007

“My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit.” — interview with the Boston Herald, 1978

Here are the facts:

On Sunday, June 23, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Detroit, MI. Gov. George Romney did not attend, citing a policy to do nothing but attend church on Sundays. Romney sent representatives to read a proclamation, and they were “lustily booed” by the crowd. Source

On Saturday, June 29, 1963, George Romney spoke at a rally in Grosse Pointe, MI, where an aide to MLK was in attendance. However, none of the news stories covering the event mention King attending, which they absolutely would have done had King been there. Furthermore, Grosse Pointe and MLK historians have stated point-blank that King never marched in Grosse Pointe, MI. Source

On Sunday, June 30, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the closing session of the annual New Jersey AFL-CIO labor institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, making it unlikely that he was also in Michigan on the 29th. Source

So: Mitt Romney never marched with King, as he once claimed. Nor did he ever see his father march with King. This is because George Romney never marched with King.

This is not to say that Romney’s father was not a supporter of the civil rights movement; Romney’s campaign seems to try to spin it that way, to make it seem like people are denigrating his father instead of pointing out Romney’s own penchant for exaggerating.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Romney is just making stuff up (other examples: that he passed bills that didn’t pass, or that he was a “lifelong hunter” and NRA fan) in ways that make Al Gore in 2000 look like the very picture of accuracy. Nor does his “definition of the word ‘saw’” remark make him less of a parser than Clinton was. Not to mention, of course, that Romney’s propensity to flip-flop (on abortion, gun rights, the environment, stem-cell research, immigration, gay rights–a host of issues) makes John Kerry look like the very picture of stubborn obstinacy.

How do Romney and his campaign explain his inaccuracies and flip-flops? They are all due to “hyperscrutiny” and “fine-tuning.”

Romney, in short, has all three qualities that conservatives viciously attacked in the last three Democratic candidates for office, and he has those qualities in far greater depth than did the Democrats. So far, I haven’t seen conservatives taking Romney to task for those qualities very much.

But, of course, it’s not as if raging hypocrisy has never been observed before on the conservative side of things.