“[My father] walked out of the Republican National Convention in 1964, when Barry Goldwater said, 'Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,'" he told Bay Windows, a LGBT interest magazine in Boston.
For years, Mitt Romney has been telling this story about how his father George Romney walked out of the 1964 RNC Convention over civil rights. The problem? It's a complete lie, and John Bohrer reveals all in an extensive piece currently on Buzzfeed.
It is observed that Mitt would never draw a line in the sand like his father did in 1964, when George dramatically "charged out of the 1964 Republican National Convention over the party's foot-dragging on civil rights," as the Boston Globe's authoritative biography, "The Real Romney," put it earlier this year. Outlets from the New York Times to the New Republic have recalled this story of the elder Romney's stand against Goldwater's hard-line conservatives. Frontline’s documentary “The Choice 2012” reported it as a formative event: “when Goldwater received the nomination, Mitt saw his father angrily storm out.” A Google search for the incident produces hundreds of pages of results. In August, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne cited the episode to write that Mitt “has seemed more a politician who would do whatever it took to close a deal than a leader driven by conviction and commitment. This is a problem George Romney never had.”
Only George Romney did not walk out of the 1964 Republican National Convention. He stayed until the very end, formally seconding Goldwater’s eventual nomination and later standing by while an actual walkout took place.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/...
Once again, Mitt makes up his own myth out of thin air. There exists absolutely no evidence to support his claim, only eyewitness statement to the contrary:
"I don't remember him walking out, no,” Walt DeVries, a George Romney aide who was with him at the 1964 convention, told BuzzFeed in an interview this October 13. “Every time I see that quote from Mitt, I just don't remember.... I've searched my mind, and I think I would have."
Why would Mitt lie about his own father? Because he is a liar. He will say and do anything to get elected. Of course, we all know this, yet the media refuses to call him out.
John Bohrer's article is a lengthy analysis of Mitt's "myth-making" and is well worth your time.