What Mitt Romney "Saw" or Didn't "See"

Mitt Romney had a dream. He has twice proclaimed that he saw his father, George Romney, march with Marting Luther King. It now appears that Mitt Romney didn't actually mean he "saw" his father in the march with ML King. What he meant was that he "saw" him, in the english literature major figurative sense. More like he imagined him marching with ML King.

Here is a CBS interview with Mitt questioning him about this march:

CBS News: “Did you actually see — with your own eyes — your father marching with Martin Luther King?”

Romney: “My own eyes? You know, I speak in the sense of I saw my dad become president of American Motors. I wasn’t actually there when he became president of American Motors, but I saw him in the figurative sense of he marched with Martin Luther King. My brother also remembers him marching with Martin Luther King and so in that sense I saw him march with Martin Luther King.”

The march that Mitt "saw" (imagined) supposedly took place in Grosse Point, MI in either 1963 or 1968. Unfortunately, the Grosse Pointe Historical Society has no record of Martin Luther King ever marching in Grosse Pointe. It would be very unusual for there to be no record of this march considering that George Romney was governor or running for President at the time the supposed marches took place. ML King did visit in 1968 and spoke at the local high school but Romney was not present.

Here is the Romney campaign explanation:

Following the Phoenix's investigation into the matter, Mitt Romney's campaign claimed that the march actually occurred in June 1963 -- and that his father made a "surprise" appearance in Grosse Pointe just a few days after King staged a march in nearby Detroit. Romney's campaign says the two events (King in Detroit and Romney in Grosse Pointe) were actually part of the same march -- therefore, the two technically marched together even though they were not physically in the same place.

So it appears that, if the campaign explanation is true, the "march" was also in the figurative sense.

Unfortunately, the NYT says differently:

However, this also has been called into question because The New York Times reported the day after the "Freedom March" that Romney did not participate because it was held on a Sunday -- and Romney, who was LDS, did not make public appearances on Sundays.

George Romney evidently was a civil rights advocate. It's too bad his son, Mitt, has to make untrue claims about his father in attempts to win the presidency.