Thursday, December 20, 2007

It depends what you mean by "saw"

Mitt Romney has been telling people that he saw his father, George Romney, at one time Republican governor of Michigan and presidential candidate, march with Martin Luther King in a civil rights march in the Wolverine State. Only trouble is, apparently it didn't happen.

OK, so another political candidate has been caught blowing hot air. So what? I mean, it's not like sons don't make mistakes about things their fathers did 30 or 40 years ago. Mitt could have shrugged his shoulders, said he could have sworn he could remember it, and moved on. Most of us would have though no less of him over the incident. (Especially those of us who could hardly think less of him.)

But what does the Mittster do? In response to questions about the accuracy of his memory, he says that maybe he didn't mean that he literally saw what he said he saw: "If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of -- in the sense I've described."

Uh, huh.

Then the clincher: "When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there."

Memo to Mitt: The Patriots didn't win the World Series. That was the Red Sox. The Pats won the Super Bowl. So,I guess, if Mitt says he saw the Patriots win the World Series, we KNOW he wasn't there.

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