That is what the Boston Phoenix says (Shameless). It was this alt-weekly that broke the story that Mitt Romney’s claim to have seen his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. was a lie.
The story spread like wildfire, forcing Romney to offer a humiliating dissertation on his interpretation of the word “saw.†CNN, the New York Times, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and the rest of the punditry pounced on the story, as did the blogosphere — from the left, right, and center of the ideological spectrum.
The reason the story made such waves, and the reason the Romney campaign fought so hard to stop it (even, knowing it was false, putting forward two “witnesses†to describe an easily disproven event), is that it confirms and epitomizes what everyone already knows about Romney.
Pundits and commentators describe this Romney trait as an “authenticity problem,†or “questions about his sincerity.â€
With today’s instant news it’s very difficult for candidates to get away with saying whatever they like without someone – usually not the mainstream media – checking the facts. Romney got caught.
