Was Romney a high school bully?

[Cleon]

Originally Posted by ANTPogo

It wasn't a "Muslim school". It was a regular elementary school.

You say that, but 100% of my Arab friends admit going to a "madrassa."

[Tricky]

Originally Posted by Brainster

LOL! Assault with a deadly weapon. Severed a part of his body. Hyperbole much?

Of course! One of the first things you ever learned was, "Don't run with scissors!"

And I know from watching Sci-Fi movies that you can clone a human being from just their hair. (So essentially, it was murder of a potential human life!)

[BenBurch]

Talked to my lawyer and he says aggravated battery fits, but he thinks that his age will keep this from becoming a big story.

[tyr_13]

I believe I've said this on these boards before, but scissors are knives. Scissors are two knives (why we call scissors a 'pair') on a joint. There is no substantive difference from holding someone down and cutting something off of them with scissors or with a knife.

Scissors are conditionally safer than knives at specific tasks and knives are safer than scissors the same way. When used in an assault like this one scissors are not safe and were one head jerk away from manslaughter. This isn't a laughing matter, scissors are a deadly weapon. Scissors are knives.

[Babbylonian]

What he did was awful. Lying about it now is what could sink him further in people's minds.

"I don't remember" is clearly a lie...unless he was assaulting people regularly and so just can't remember this particular incident. Or maybe he's going senile, which should disqualify him from being President.

[jj]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

He did choose to attend Reverend Wrights church.

Oh, look, religious freedom is good, but only if it's the right preacher, then?

[ANTPogo]

Originally Posted by Babbylonian

"I don't remember" is clearly a lie...unless he was assaulting people regularly and so just can't remember this particular incident. Or maybe he's going senile, which should disqualify him from being President.

It worked for Reagan.

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by ANTPogo

It worked for Reagan.

To be fair, I think his Alzheimer's made that an honest admission most of the time.

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Well, that does it for me. I'm voting for Obama.

It may be the tipping point for me. I cannot abide a bully.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Biscuit

I did some dumb things in high school, not assault, but I think we have way more recent behavior to go on in order to determine his character. I would hate to be judged by the kid I was and not on the man I am today.

He apparently wasn't a follower, he was a bully that assaulted another kid and cut the kid's hair with scissors.

There's a difference between this and the stupid things kids do like shoplifting and drugs, especially when their peers do it. There's a difference when some kid who grows up among violence is a violent teen that turns his/her life around as an adult.

This is totally different. It says something about the man and it's not something good.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by timhau

If the man you're today refused to own up to what the kid you were did back then, I don't know how different the two would really be.

Exactly. This also says more about Romney. At least one of the other kids involved felt horribly guilty about the incident and later apologized. Romney claims not to remember. Give me a break. Does anyone really believe he doesn't remember?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

Talked to my lawyer and he says aggravated battery fits, but he thinks that his age will keep this from becoming a big story.

Oh it will be a very big story. It already is. I'm guessing John Lauber's about to be found by the media that are undoubtedly looking to interview him right now. I'm guessing the news interview circuit within a week.

Should we start a pool? Pick a day. I'll start the poll but unfortunately the prize will just be thread kudos.


Whoops, chuck that. Lauber died in 2004. Perhaps his sisters will be interviewed.

[fishbob]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

What is more likely to inform a Presidents worldview and influence his policies?

Something that Romney did in 1965, or 20 years of weekly doses of "white people engineered AIDS" conspiracy theories, "God damn America" and anti-semitic hate speech that ended in 2008?

Lets compare:

Obama achieves a position of authority and attempts to defend the country, fix the economy, and develop a safety net for the entire population by reducing the cost of health care.

Romney achieves a position of authority and guts companies, puts Americans out of work, and makes himself richer at their expense.

You tell me.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Whoops, looks like Obama bullied a black girl:

I'm so pleased by this part of the story:

Quote:

The day after Obama evolved, WaPo rolls out a Romney-bullied-a-gay-guy story.

Kool! Out maneuvering Rove. I love it!

What a coup.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by fishbob

Lets compare:

Obama achieves a position of authority and attempts to defend the country, fix the economy, and develop a safety net for the entire population by reducing the cost of health care.

Romney achieves a position of authority and guts companies, puts Americans out of work, and makes himself richer at their expense.

You tell me.

Don't forget to add, and Romney went to a prep school where he got attention bullying smaller, younger kids who might or might not have been gay.

Here's another incident from Brainster's link above.

Quote:

In an English class, Gary Hummel, who was a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated with Romney shouting, “Atta girl!” In the culture of that time and place, that was not entirely out of the norm. Hummel recalled some teachers using similar language.

That makes the Romney rebuttal appear even more dishonest:

Quote:

"I don't remember that incident and I'll tell you I certainly don't believe that I ... thought the fellow was homosexual," Romney said. "That was the furthest thing from my mind back in the 1960s, so that was not the case."

I don't think most of us equate serious bullying with "pranks".

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Whoops, looks like Obama bullied a black girl:

Originally Posted by Brainster

LOL! Assault with a deadly weapon. Severed a part of his body. Hyperbole much?

Double standard much?

Obama "slight[ly] shoved" a girl on the playground after they had been playing together. Romney and group friends held a boy down and cut off clumps of his hair. If you think those are even remotely the same thing, there is something wrong with you.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by bonzombiekitty

....

Assuming Romney actually does not recall it (either because he really just doesn't remember it or it never happened), then saying something like "I don't remember doing that, but if I did, I am horrified and deeply sorry. The person who would have done that back then is not who I am today." would be an acceptable response.

I have a hard time with the claim, he doesn't remember, not just because it has a high probability of being a lie, but also because that suggests Romney thought so little of the trauma he caused that he simply forgot about the non-event.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

Double standard much?

Obama "slight[ly] shoved" a girl on the playground after they had been playing together. Romney and group friends held a boy down and cut off clumps of his hair. If you think those are even remotely the same thing, there is something wrong with you.

And just try replacing, "outside the high school dorm", with the word, "playground". Try to picture that image.

[Tricky]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Whoops, chuck that. Lauber died in 2004. Perhaps his sisters will be interviewed.

They already have said he never spoke of it to them. One of the other bullies (who later repented what he had done) says he spoke to Lauber years later and Lauber confessed that he had been quite traumatized by it.

[Brainster]

I think it's time to establish the general principle:

Anything the opposition candidate did years ago is a horrific crime that casts severe doubt in my mind as to his fitness for high office.

Anything my candidate did years ago is a youthful mistake that has no bearing on his ability to solve our current problems.

[ANTPogo]

So, the Romney campaign has asked some old friends of Mitt from that time to provide some "supporting remarks" to help counter the WaPo's portrayal of Romney. At least one, even though he was one of Romney's closest high school buddies, is still not sure whether or not he wants to do that.

[varwoche]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Whoops, looks like Obama bullied a black girl:

When you echo a random, agenda-driven blogger who cherry picks a snippet of text, do you even pause and wonder about the text that was omitted?

Here, and thanks for pointing out such an excellent example of someone owning up to their actions, quite unlike Romney.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I think it's time to establish the general principle:

Anything the opposition candidate did years ago is a horrific crime that casts severe doubt in my mind as to his fitness for high office.

Anything my candidate did years ago is a youthful mistake that has no bearing on his ability to solve our current problems.

How far does this extend? This is now a clear felony, so what other felonies should be ignored as youthful indiscretions? Say he embezzled a few million in the eighties?

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I think it's time to establish the general principle:

Anything the opposition candidate did years ago is a horrific crime that casts severe doubt in my mind as to his fitness for high office.

Anything my candidate did years ago is a youthful mistake that has no bearing on his ability to solve our current problems.

I have already said that this is an exceptionally horrid thing, and if he had been in a fight, or drug problems, or some vandalism, I'd give him a pass, so you have no basis for saying this.

You are simply upset that this is a real event that is real bad and it will really hurt your candidate.

[ANTPogo]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I think it's time to establish the general principle:

Anything the opposition candidate did years ago is a horrific crime that casts severe doubt in my mind as to his fitness for high office.

Anything my candidate did years ago is a youthful mistake that has no bearing on his ability to solve our current problems.

Yes, the only reason people aren't considering an elementary school kid giving a girl his age a "light shove" while saying "I'm not your boyfriend" to be exactly the same as a gang of high school boys forcibly holding down another boy and cutting off his his hair with a pair of scissors is because of political partisanship.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I think it's time to establish the general principle:

Anything the opposition candidate did years ago is a horrific crime that casts severe doubt in my mind as to his fitness for high office.

Anything my candidate did years ago is a youthful mistake that has no bearing on his ability to solve our current problems.

If Obama held a guy down and cut off his hair I'd happily condemn him for it. I understand the desire to find equivalency in everything but it's just not here Brainster.

Now, I honestly don't know if Romney's actions would affect my vote should I be inclined to vote for him but it's just not the same. It really isn't. It's just knee-jerk tu quoque.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by RandFan

... It's just [failed] knee-jerk tu quoque.

ftfy

Romney's toast. The only thing that might save him is they should have made this an October surprise. The American voting public has a short attention span.

[Doubt]

Not a fan of Romney. I grew up a a few miles away from Cranbrook in a town nothing like Bloomfield Hills. May as well have been another planet. But I know the area.

The gist of the story: Snobby rich kid at private school acted like a spoiled brat to his classmates and did things he should regret.

Well, that sort of thing was not unusual. The last time I remember Cranbrook making the news was when a hiking trip from there got stuck in a late winter storm in the Appalachian mountains in 1993. Everybody lived but the couple of days it took to find them did get them some national news coverage. They also did not all engage in model behavior and work as a team to save themselves. Some did well. Others did not try to hard.

What I am having trouble finding via google is what happened when they were rescued. Some of them acted like obnoxious jerks while the news cameras were rolling documenting how they looked after just after being taken out of the mountains.

So I would say that the school and the attitude around it tends to produce bad behavior. Nothing unique to Mitt.

[ANTPogo]

Just for fun, let's compare what Romney did to what a certain other Republican president did the same year Mitt and his friends were holding down and cutting the hair of kids they thought were gay:

Quote:

A few of us were in the common room one night. It was 1965, I believe — my junior year, his sophomore. We were making our usual sarcastic commentaries on those who walked by us. A little nasty perhaps, but always with a touch of humor. On this occasion, however, someone we all believed to be gay walked by, although the word we used in those days was "queer." Someone, I'm sorry to say, snidely used that word as he walked by.

George heard it and, most uncharacteristically, snapped: "Shut up." Then he said, in words I can remember almost verbatim: "Why don't you try walking in his shoes for a while and see how it feels before you make a comment like that?"

[Skeptic Ginger]

I predict Matthew Shepard's mom to be part of the news for the next few days. She's already commented according to TPM.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

Talked to my lawyer and he says aggravated battery fits, but he thinks that his age will keep this from becoming a big story.

Well I wouldn't want to be condemned for my actions in school. Like when I told the school board they had no business keeping our one openly gay male student off the cheer squad. Or like when I supported my dad in proposing a school program to keep pregnant students in school. Or when I pointed out that the school was indirectly funding a Christian Bible study club while actively suppressing a secular club. Or volunteering to help with a sober graduation party four years straight.

Yeah I sure wouldn't want to answer for all that heinous crap from my youth.

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by ANTPogo

Just for fun, let's compare what Romney did to what a certain other Republican president did the same year Mitt and his friends were holding down and cutting the hair of kids they thought were gay:

And isn't that breeze coming from an unexpected quarter?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

Double standard much?

Obama "slight[ly] shoved" a girl on the playground after they had been playing together. Romney and group friends held a boy down and cut off clumps of his hair. If you think those are even remotely the same thing, there is something wrong with you.

Add to this the fact that given a chance to respond to credible allegations of the incident, Governor Romney claimed he didn't remember the incident where he was the ringleader in an assault. I think the story would have gone away if at that moment he had said something like, "It was a long time ago. I was young and immature, and I apologize to the victim."

By the way, apparently NOW he remembers. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...1W01-M3TG7.DTL

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by Travis

Well I wouldn't want to be condemned for my actions in school. Like when I told the school board they had no business keeping our one openly gay male student off the cheer squad. Or like when I supported my dad in proposing a school program to keep pregnant students in school. Or when I pointed out that the school was indirectly funding a Christian Bible study club while actively suppressing a secular club. Or volunteering to help with a sober graduation party four years straight.

Yeah I sure wouldn't want to answer for all that heinous crap from my youth.

Travis, if you ever run for office, count on me for some seed money.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by ANTPogo

So, the Romney campaign has asked some old friends of Mitt from that time to provide some "supporting remarks" to help counter the WaPo's portrayal of Romney. At least one, even though he was one of Romney's closest high school buddies, is still not sure whether or not he wants to do that.

That link refers to this story. But there's something else interesting in that story which your link doesn't mention:

Quote:

While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.

So the post completely misrepresented White in the original story. Hmmm...

[BenBurch]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That link refers to this story. But there's something else interesting in that story which your link doesn't mention:



So the post completely misrepresented White in the original story. Hmmm...

Doesn't make the bad stuff go away no matter how much you need it to.

[Skeptic Ginger]

One of my son's best friends is bi. The kids in their crowd were all in the Gay-Straight Alliance in high school. I'm proud of him.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by BenBurch

Doesn't make the bad stuff go away no matter how much you need it to.

That actually wasn't my point. I wasn't defending Romney, I was attacking the Post. Regardless of Romney's or Obama's merits, our press corps is crap. And that's a major problem for all of us.

[ANTPogo]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

So the post completely misrepresented White in the original story. Hmmm...

Yes, that totally changes the fact that Romney and a gang of his friends held a schoolmate down and cut his hair with scissors, and when contacted by the Romney campaign to give “supporting remarks” to Romney in the wake of this hitting the news, stated he was “still debating” whether to back up his old school chum.

[RandFan]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That link refers to this story. But there's something else interesting in that story which your link doesn't mention:

Then there's something else interesting from your link.

Quote:

One former classmate and old friend of Romney’s – who refused to be identified by name – said there are “a lot of guys” who went to Cranbrook who have “really negative memories” of Romney’s behavior in the dorms, behavior this classmate describes as “evil” and “like Lord of the Flies.”

The classmate believes Romney is lying when he claims to not remember it. “It makes these fellows [who have owned up to it] very remorseful. For [Romney] not to remember it? It doesn’t ring true. How could the fellow with the scissors forget it?” the former classmate said.

Hmmmm......