It's looking like Mitt Romney might have been judged too quickly on the Martin Luther King business. Two witnesses have now come forward to The Politico, insisting that they saw the late Gov. George Romney (R-MI) make a surprise appearance alongside King in 1963.

The campaign has also posted a collection of citations — including a contemporary account from the Detroit Free Press — attesting that it happened.

There's one lingering question, though: If the facts do vindicate Mitt Romney on this one — and at first glance, this looks legit — why did he handle it so awkwardly and ineptly right off the bat? Why all the parsing about what the word "saw" meant, and the business about "march with" being figurative?

Late Update: Or perhaps not. The Boston Phoenix is standing by their story — the elder Romney participated in the march, but they insist King did not:

Then-governor George Romney did indeed march in Grosse Pointe, on Saturday, June 29, 1963, but Martin Luther King Jr. was not there; he was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, addressing the closing session of the annual New Jersey AFL-CIO labor institute at Rutgers University.

Late Late Update: On closer inspection it looks like the Free Press article actually doesn't show that the two men were there at the same march. So if King wasn't actually there — even if George Romney was — then this whole thing looks like it was just spin from camp Romney, right down to taking the Free Press and other news sources out of context.