NY Times examines Romney's pattern of falsehoods

Earlier today, I wondered when the national press might begin to report on Mitt Romney's propensity for telling falsehoods on the campaign trail.

So far during this campaign season, Romney has been caught in a number of evasions, exaggerations, and outright lies. His campaign has even been forced to admit that neither Romney's father nor Romney himself had ever marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., as he has claimed at least twice over the last 30 years, most recently just days ago. Most of these untruths, if they are examined at all, are presented as stand-alone occurrences, not as part of a pattern.

Surely, I wondered, a political press that condemned Al Gore as a liar for things he never even said would notice that a front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination appears to be a habitual liar.

New York Times reporter Michael Luo noticed.

There was the period last spring when Mitt Romney claimed while campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire that he had been a hunter “pretty much all my life,” only to have to admit later he had seriously hunted on only two occasions.

Then there was the endorsement Mr. Romney claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he received from the National Rifle Association while running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, when it turned out the group had never endorsed him.

Mr. Romney’s latest concession is that he only “figuratively” saw his late father, George, march with Martin Luther King Jr., something he claimed in his highly publicized speech about his Mormon faith earlier this month. Some publications have raised doubts that the event ever happened at all.

Mr. Romney once said about misstatements by his Republican rival, Rudolph W. Giuliani, “facts are stubborn things.” But does he have his own problem with blurring the truth?

The analysis piece notes that Romney is quick to issue corrections when he is caught making stuff up. The problem is that he keeps making stuff up.

Indeed, with many of these instances, there has often been at least an element of his truth in his claims. But for a candidate who has featured his business background and made much of his propensity for careful analysis of data, he is not always precise. Asked about it on Thursday, Mr. Romney said he would correct whatever might be wrong.

“There’s going to be hyperscrutiny of each word,” Mr. Romney said. “That’s part of running for president. I’m up to it. You can look at the things I’m saying about my record and about the events of campaign and history and you’ll find if now and then I miss a word or I get something slightly off, I’ll correct it, acknowledge where it’s wrong. But the overall thrust, the overall meaning of the story, is very accurate.” That, too, however, has not been so in every case.

Indeed.

The piece does not use the word "liar," but it places this pattern of falsehoods into a context that has been lacking so far in the coverage of Romney's campaign.

The truth, frankly, is obvious. Mitt Romney is a liar.