Mittens "Zelig" Romney

It seems that Mitt Romney's dad wasn't alone during that Michigan march with Martin Luther King, Jr. Mittens is now admitting that HE and his father both marched with King! It took quite a bit of expert questioning and trust-building, but Mittens confessed the whole thing to the Boston Globe.

Ever the avid historian, I did a little searching in the archives of all the great photo databases: Corbis, Getty, Fotosearch, the usual ones. Lo and behold, that Mittens gets around! Let me share the results I found; turns out that Mittens really was the "renaissance man" of the 20th century.

Here he is back in the early 1920s with the great Albert Einstein:

It's said they were great friends, and Al got some of his best ideas from the free-thinking Mittens. I know you're skeptical, but really! This is all in the archives.

Seems he also spent some time in India back then, helping Gandhi overthrow the British:

Mittens' contributions were such that he even helped Gandhi spin the cloth for his saris and sari-panties. Again--don't shoot the messenger! I'm just reporting what I found in my exhaustive search of the annals of history.

If you have doubted Mittens' experience with what the presidency can be like during wartime, doubt no more, dear friends:

Aides to FDR often reported that Mittens was never far from Roosevelt's side, and sometimes Eleanor even let Romney borrow some of her clothes when he spent the night at the White House after staying up late with FDR and talking about global politics. Mittens reportedly even made some contributions to the New Deal, suggesting letter combinations that amazed and delighted Roosevelt and his staff. An experienced war president AND an economic and social-programs genius! Who knew?

My search in the archives was really paying off. But what about the last half of the 20th century? Did Mittens lay low, or was he still out there at the cutting edge of history? My answers came swiftly -- and with photographic evidence!

Mittens shared a one-room apartment with Marlon Brando just before Brando hit it big in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." Here's a candid snapshot, taken by Elaine Strich, Brando's gal-pal at the time:

According to her unpublished diaries, made available to me through special negotiations with the National Archives, Strichy often complained to Brando that Mittens was a little uptight and didn't drink enough to be really fun, but Brando knew talent when he saw it. Strich ended her affair with Brando shortly after this photo was taken. Wow. Mittens was there, in the thick of it, during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Amazing.

But Hollywood couldn't hold Mittens' attention forever; his father's political connections drew Mitt back into the Beltway ballyhoo that was Camelot. Here, he rides in a Florida motorcade (thankfully, not THAT motorcade!) with JFK and an unidentified general shortly after astronaut John Glenn's historic spaceflight:

In an impeachmentandotherdreams exclusive interview, John Glenn told this reporter that Mittens is the one who urged the astronaut to try his hand at politics. Mitt's eye for political talent and savvy?--pretty impressive, no?


After so many hours online and in the photo archives, I was chased out by an angry Giuliani-supporting librarian, who told me in a voice not unlike that of actress Rosie Perez that I'd "better get the hell outta here, yo, and quit scanning all these old photos of grandpas."

I'd clearly touched a nerve.