Romney admits he lied about MLK -- figuratively

Ya gotta hand it to Multiple Choice Mitt Romney. He can lie and prevaricate and spin and weasel his way out with the best of them.

Having been called on the carpet for inventing a childhood memory about seeing his father marching in Michigan with Martin Luther King Jr., Romney came out and admittedhe didn't really see that after all.

He just saw it -- are you ready? -- figuratively.

Mitt Romney acknowledged Thursday that he never saw his father march with Martin Luther King, Jr. as he asserted in a nationally televised speech this month, and historical evidence shows that Michigan's Gov. George Romney and the civil rights leader never did march together.

Romney said his father had told him he had marched with King and that he had been using the word "saw" in a "figurative sense."

He couldn't just say -- "I lied my ass off so I would look like I was somehow racially enlightened."

So he invented this concept of the word "saw" in a figurative sense. Naturally, he had to explain this to reporters, who were probably laughing their asses off.

"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."

So, he saw his dad march, but not really. Sort of.

Maybe tomorrow he'll say he saw it in a dream or in a vision from God or on The History Channel or whatever.

Or maybe he'll just say, "Fuck it. I lied."