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.

We'll follow up with a more detailed and official notice. But we're hiring a new full-time reporter-blogger to work at TPMmuckraker.com. If I don't say so myself, I think it's one of the coolest reporting jobs in the business. But maybe I'm biased. Interested? Let us know.

Third party groups supporting Hillary dropped nearly $300,000 yesterday on mailings and phone-bank calls.

McCain sources say he's up 500% in online contributions this week over last week. Of course, big percentage jumps are a lot easier to put together when you're coming back from near zero. Still, he's clearly back in the race. Bears watching.

New docs obtained by TPMmuckraker under a FOIA request show that the State Dept knew of Blackwater's fraudulent practices back in early 2005 but signed them up anyway.

TPMmuckraker reporter Spencer Ackerman got hold of a pretty amazing stash of documents here. So we'll have more coming on this throughout the day and into next week.

Stay Tuned.

Okay, you've been reading about all the excitement growing up around the Golden Duke awards. This morning, Local Scandal nominee Penn. State Sen. Vincent Fumo was written up in the local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, for his nomination. And in early January the Dukes are going to be featured on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Seriously, I kid you not: I'm going to go on Moyers' show and talk with Bill about the Golden Dukes and who the winners are.

Anyway, readers who sent in the winning nominations are going to be getting lots of cool TPM/Golden Dukes swag. And you can see the official Golden Duke statuette right there on the right. But here's the dirty secret. That's it. I have to confess that while there's a picture of the official Golden Duke statuette, there is no actual statuette. But we want to change that. We need to get a real life statuette.

But the truth is we have no idea how to get one made. It doesn't need to be fancy; doesn't have to be any nicer really than the kind of Hooray You Won Tenth Place in the Division trophies I used to get playing AYSO soccer back in the day. But it does have to look like the statuette in the picture. It just won't do to have the Duke be a guy kicking a soccer ball.

Now I normally come to you, the august TPM readership, for tips on political matters and various sorts of expertise. But there must be more than a few of you who know how we'd get this done. Obviously, it can be done. It's just a matter of how much we'd have to pay and just who we go to, or what kind of outfit we go to, or designer, or whatever to get an estimate.

So, the fate or at least the greater glory of the Dukes is in your hands. If you know who we need to call, what we need to do, please let us know as soon as you can.

Former Ned Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan, on the prospects for carrying on the legacies of the Dean and Lamont campaigns.

In today's installment of the quest by each of the Democratic presidential candidates not to be seen as the candidate going negative (what's up with that? are Democratic voters that sensitive?), they debate the finer points of adjective placement.

Maybe Mitt Romney can diagram it for us.

Alright, I cut the Mittster a little slack last night. But this is getting ridiculous. Andrew Sullivan picks this out of the latest piece in the Boston Globe.

Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: "My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."

I think we just blew right through the parody wall here.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about that week he spent in the slammer in Selma with John Lewis, especially after his role organizing the Fruit of Islam.

Last night, I gave you my opinion of the Mitt Romney 'saw my Dad marching with MLK' brouhaha. But in case you haven't seen what the Mittser actually said, let's go to the tape ...

For my money, the real time bomb for Mitt may be his comment last night about seeing "the Patriots win the World Series." Heck, they haven't won a Series since Yastrzemski was quarterback.

In the sort of twist peculiar to national security investigations, the CIA has referred a criminal investigation to the FBI over public disclosures made by a former CIA agent about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, at the same time that the FBI and CIA are engaged in an institutional struggle over the legality and efficacy of the interrogation techniques used on Abu Zubaydah.

Confused? Spencer Ackerman sorts out the conflicting interests at stake.

There've been a few polls suggesting a new uptick in support for John McCain, particularly in New Hampshire, which is a state kind of suited to his politics and one where he beat George Bush in 2000. But maybe there's more to this.

There's a new ARG poll out tonight that shows something pretty striking.

ARG has McCain tied for first with Romney. Both are at 26%. And in Iowa, ARG has him in second behind Huckabee. Huck 28%, McCain 20%, Romney 17%.

Let me stipulate all the standard 'just one poll' caveats. But these aren't in a vacuum. This is the first poll that's shown McCain in anything like that kind of position in Iowa, though he's been trending up modestly. In New Hampshire though, that poll has good company. The three immediately previous public polls for New Hampshire all have McCain over 20%; and one of those three actually had him at 27%.

Meanwhile, today's Fox News poll has him in a three-way tie nationally with Huckabee and Rudy.

There are two big obstacles McCain has in front of him, at least two -- his recent embrace of immigration policies that are completely anathema to core Republicans and the general dislike many, many core Republicans have for him.

On the other hand, if he can put together surprise victories in these early primaries, there is simply no way to overstate the deep well of adoration, tacit support and general desire to fluff that McCain will be able to draw from within the Washington press corps. And even those core Republicans who've never been crazy about him will breath a elemental sigh of relief that they've got a candidate of stature, experience and ability rather than a freak, a goof or a Ken doll.

Okay, I've invested a lot of my credibility saying how I think Mitt Romney is the odds on guy to take the Republican nomination. So I really don't take kindly to him making such a fool of himself that he's threatening his shot at the nomination.

TPM's Eric Kleefeld just found this latest installment from NBC's FirstRead on the brouhaha over Romney's claim to having seen his pops, George Romney marching with Martin Luther King ...

Romney says that it depends on what the definition of "saw" is.

A defensive Romney was peppered with questions today on exactly what he meant when he said -- most recently on Meet the Press -- that he "saw" his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. Recent articles have indicated that his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, didn't march with the civil-rights leader.

Admitting that he didn't see the march with his own eyes, he said, "I 'saw' him in the figurative sense."

"The reference of seeing my father lead in civil rights," he said, "and seeing my father march with Martin Luther King is in the sense of this figurative awareness of and recognition of his leadership."

"I've tried to be as accurate as I can be," he continued, smiling firmly. "If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of -- in the sense I've described."

The questioning did not relent. "I'm an English literature major," he insisted at one point. "When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there." (He meant the Super Bowl, of course.)

Seriously, after all I've said about his strengths in the GOP nomination race, I think Mitt owes me a little more than to make a fool of himself like this. More seriously, I've seen lots of pols get tripped up on stuff like this -- memories that turn out never to have happened. Sometimes certainly they're just fibbing. But I think it's actually not that uncommon to have childhood or decades-old memories of events get conflated or blurred. Our minds are not Xerox machines or hard disks. And memories get shaped and distorted by subsequent events, desires, understandings of ourselves and a lot else. So often these falsehoods aren't lies or even necessarily conscious embellishments.

I haven't looked enough into this particular case of Romney, his dad and King to have any particular opinion one way or another of which it is, though his pretty obvious fibbing in the Muslim cabinet member episode doesn't give me a lot of confidence in his candor. But when you have to start referring to dictionary definitions or you lit degree to add weight to your dingbat hermeneutics it's just time to pack it in.

In yesterday's episode of TPMtv we announced the official nominees for this year's Golden Duke Awards (in honor of disgraced and incarcerated Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham) in six categories to 'honor' outstanding achievement in public corruption, betrayals of the public trust and generally outrageous behavior. Readers sent in nominations and the TPM staff chose five nominees for each six categories.

You can see the video announcement below. But we've now also put together the official 2007 Golden Dukes nominee page, with each category, the nominees in each category, accompanying video as well as the text of the winning reader nominations (i.e., their argument for why their choice should be nominated).

In categories like Best Testimonial Trainwreck, you just can't evaluate without seeing the awful truth preserved in video. So you'll definitely want to check it out.

Readers whose nominations were chosen will be notified by email tomorrow. But if you just can't wait to know whether or not you won check out the page to see if you won.

So, go over, take a look, consider all the layers of mucktitudinous evidence and send us in emails telling us which of the five nominees in each category should win the Golden Duke.

The nominations are now in the hand of our distinguished panel of judges and we'll be announcing the winners on December 31st.

And if you want to see the official announcement of the nominees, feast your eyes on the video below ...

McClatchy's Jonathan Landay reports:

The Department of Justice is investigating whether a former intelligence officer illegally disclosed classified information in interviews he gave on how the CIA interrogated a suspected senior al Qaida member.

In interviews with ABC News and The Washington Post earlier this month, former CIA officer John Kiriakou gave detailed descriptions of how a detainee known as Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. The procedure produces the sensation of drowning and is widely considered a form of torture, which is illegal under U.S. and international laws.

The interviews were the first public confirmation that Zubaydah, a Palestinian who allegedly helped finance the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been subjected to the technique while in secret CIA custody. The CIA surrendered Zubaydah to the U.S. military in September 2006, and he's now being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The department opened the criminal probe of Kiriakou after receiving a "criminal referral" from the CIA, according to officials familiar with the process. The officials requested anonymity because criminal referrals aren't made public.

The AP reports that Alberto Gonzales was among a group of White House lawyers who opposed destruction of the tapes:

One official familiar with the investigation said the review so far indicates that Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel and then attorney general, advised against destroying the videotapes as one of four senior Bush administration attorneys discussing how to handle them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger, declined comment.

Another of the administration attorneys, John Bellinger, then a lawyer at the National Security Council, has told colleagues that administration lawyers came to a consensus that the tapes should not be destroyed, said a senior official familiar with Bellinger's account of the 2003 White House discussion. Bellinger could not be reached for comment.

"The clear recommendation of Bellinger and the others was against destruction of the tapes," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The recommendation in 2003 from the White House was that the tapes should not be destroyed."

No mention of Cheney's David Addington.

In a statement just put out by his office, House intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) says that a committee subpoena has been issued for the CIA's Jose Rodriguez, the official reportedly responsible for the destruction of the torture tapes:

“In addition, the committee is working to secure testimony for January 16 from John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez. We are in discussions with CIA officials regarding Mr. Rizzo’s testimony. We have been told that Mr. Rodriguez would like to tell his story but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary. We therefore have issued the subpoena for Mr. Rodriguez. We look forward to his testimony as well as the testimony of others who have information about this matter.”

The issuing of a subpoena is different than the serving of a subpoena. The statement suggests to me that with subpoena in hand the committee can now begin negotiating with Rodriguez's lawyer, Bob Bennett, for his client's testimony.

In other developments, staff lawyers for the committee have been at CIA headquarters today reviewing documents, and at the Justice Department investigators have been going through CIA emails and other documents.

Earlier this afternoon, I pointed out the beginning of the run on the Rudy contract at the key political betting/prediction sites.

That was a bit after noon. He's fallen like another five points since that post. Current price is 27.3.

To give a little perspective, at the Intrade site, Rudy's seldom traded under 35 since June. He's almost never gone below 40 since September. And he peaked at around 49 on the last day before the Shag Fund story broke. And then in the last three weeks or so his contract has lost almost half its value. And in just the last day his contract has lost almost ten points.

Flat-lining in key states and losing the lead in the national polls? No problem, says Rudy's pollster.