New Developments III

[criddic3]

Another big problem with this story is that apparently some of the people who talked about this incident were not even there, so it's a little difficult to corroborate it. The person at the center of this is apparently also conveniently dead, so he can't confirm or denounce the incident. That makes it a dead-end attack. It will fade into obscurity along with so many attacks on both sides. Romney oppenents want to prop up this story but I can't see the justification for it with such flimsy accounts. The problem with reaching so far back in time is that people tend to care more about what you did as an adult than what you did as a teenager. For instance, I personally could care less if President Obama went to school in Indonesia as a kid. Sure, you could raise questions about his lack of Americana growing up, but in the end he's still the president. More important are his policies and current attitude. In 2008 he said he was new and different kind of politician, and even those of us who didn't vote for him said "okay, you have the reigns...let's see what you do with them." In 2012, we know he is just like the kind of politician people have become disenchanted with. All this nonsense about dogs and whether a prank was played in high school is just a distraction.

No, the person who spoke about it who wasn't even there was the guy actually defending Romney's behavior at Cranbrook (he even appeared on ABC News with Diane Sawyer the other night). The Washington Post independently sourced the story from four men who were part of the posse that held down Lauber while Willard Scissorhands hacked off his faggy blond locks.

Also, there's no need for the victim to be alive in order to confirm the story. It's already been confirmed by the other students who were there. Even Romney realizes this, which is why he's not wholesale denying that it happened (which, believe me, he probably would if its authenticity had not been so unquestionably verified). What exactly are you not getting about that? How are the accounts (all of which are identical) "flimsy" in any way, shape or form?

Please get your information straight before posting about this again.

I apologize if I had my facts wrong. I had heard that more than one person who had spoken of these events was not actually present. Maybe I was misinformed. But I still think more people will consider this a foolish act of a teenager rather than something that Romney would condone today. I also have to say that his lack of remembering the incident could mean he is telling the truth when he says he was not out to get target someone he perceived to be gay. The problem is that we just can't know what the circumstances were. There were times I was bullied as a kid. I was different, as a hearing impaired kid who liked sing all the time. And not contemporary, cool songs, but old Frank Sinatra songs. And before I was a teenager I did a lot of spontaneous dancing because I liked to watch Fred Astaire movies. So I know what it's like to be seen as "the weird kid." No one ever cut my hair, and I didn't act feminine even when I was dancing around (otherwise I might have had more serious bullies after me; mostly I got snickers), but nevertheless I am not defending bullying here. I just don't think Mitt Romney fifty years later is the same person, even if he did tease someone. Now if the story was that he roughed up the guy, beat him up to a pulp, I might be concerned. But it is true, not an excuse, that years ago we didn't have all this hands-off stuff. I mean, today a teacher sees a fight they don't even try to break it up. When I was in high school the teachers did something about these things. So I can only imagine that if the incident was serious enough in 1965, someone would have been reprimanded. We're not talking about inner-city brawls here. Get over it.

[OscarGuy]

Magilla, the bonus is that if the dems regain control of the house, the Senate will be more likely to change filibuster rules to eliminate the possibility of even a large minority from holding the country hostage.

And let me recommend this site. I know it has a dem bent, which would dismay someone like Criddic who probably pores over every republican-tilted opinion realclearpolitics puts up, but his perspectives, though sometimes repetitive, seem to be more attuned to what's going on...plus, the actual article I'm linking discusses the current state of the political system and the various states voting this year.

http://electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/May03.html

Obama needs 272 to win. And given trends, he only needs to carry Iowa, NH, NM, the states in the fifth column at the bottom of the page and he'll have 257 requiring a mere 14 electoral votes to win. He could do that easily winning only Ohio and none of the others. If you only have to win four states, one considered a real toss-up as opposed to carrying all seven of those toss-ups, things become tougher. Romney has a challenge on his hands. And while I could see him winning most of them...he can lose Colorado or Missouri or Nevada or Virginia and be ok, but not two of those four...so, in essence, Romney has to win 7 of 8 while Obama has to win four of 10 states...a much easier prospective...

I don't think Missouri will shift left ever again with so much outside money pouring in to defeat Claire, but she's a tough campaigner and may have just gotten a lot of bonus points with young voters by appearing on and effectively going toe-to-toe with Stephen Colbert last week. I hope she stays in...the prospects aren't looking great...especially not with that dead fish Sarah Steelman as a competitor...even tacking far right won't hurt her in our state...just look at Roy Blunt, John Ashcroft and other far righters that managed to win statewide races in Missouri. Apparently, we have no problem with nutjobs...

[Big Magilla]

I know, Tee, I know, but all the polls, which I do try to ignore, show it to be a close election with a few batttleground states once again holding the key because of our antiquated electoral college system. I've seen scenarios where we could actually have a tie in which the House of Representatives would determine the outcome and you know what that would mean.

Actually, I am more optimistic about the Presidency than I am about Congress. The House could, and should, revert to the Democrats, but the Senate is still unlikely to have enough Dems or willing to compromise Republicans to overcome threatened filibusters to get anything done.

[Mister Tee]

But does the electorate care? The latest Rasmussen Poll (5/7-5/9) has Romney at 50% and Obama at 43% nationwide.

Magilla, you'll save yourself alot of whiplash if you just ignore the long-discredited Rasmussen polls. Rasmussen is an arm of the GOP, and has a long history of providing wildly Republican-optimistic polls for most of the year...then declaring a "tightening" late in the year which brings his results in line with most everyone else.

In fact, though I know it's hard, I'd recommend ignoring polls entirely, at least till we near October. They're bound to fluctuate, based on dozens of variables (including respondent whim), and though the press -- with its vested interest in a close-close-close/you-can't turn-away-from-your-set race -- will highlight every ephemeral shift, the election will be decided on the fundamentals. And the fundamentals are these: Obama is a charimatic incumbent, unchallenged for renomination, with a huge foreign policy triumph to his credit, no scandals or social unrest, an economy that -- while not as strong as anyone but a GOP opponent would want -- has been growing and improving for two years now (with the unemployment rate actually poised to go below 8%), and an opponent who's not only no ball of fire, he generates active dislike from significant portions of the electorate.

The Keys system -- which I advocated throughout all the twists & turns of the '08 election, and which turned out correct, as usual -- declares Obama a certainty for re-election. I see no reason to doubt it.

[flipp525]

Another big problem with this story is that apparently some of the people who talked about this incident were not even there, so it's a little difficult to corroborate it. The person at the center of this is apparently also conveniently dead, so he can't confirm or denounce the incident. That makes it a dead-end attack. It will fade into obscurity along with so many attacks on both sides. Romney oppenents want to prop up this story but I can't see the justification for it with such flimsy accounts. The problem with reaching so far back in time is that people tend to care more about what you did as an adult than what you did as a teenager. For instance, I personally could care less if President Obama went to school in Indonesia as a kid. Sure, you could raise questions about his lack of Americana growing up, but in the end he's still the president. More important are his policies and current attitude. In 2008 he said he was new and different kind of politician, and even those of us who didn't vote for him said "okay, you have the reigns...let's see what you do with them." In 2012, we know he is just like the kind of politician people have become disenchanted with. All this nonsense about dogs and whether a prank was played in high school is just a distraction.

No, the person who spoke about it who wasn't even there was the guy actually defending Romney's behavior at Cranbrook (he even appeared on ABC News with Diane Sawyer the other night). The Washington Post independently sourced the story from four men who were part of the posse that held down Lauber while Willard Scissorhands hacked off his faggy blond locks.

Also, there's no need for the victim to be alive in order to confirm the story. It's already been confirmed by the other students who were there. Even Romney realizes this, which is why he's not wholesale denying that it happened (which, believe me, he probably would if its authenticity had not been so unquestionably verified). What exactly are you not getting about that? How are the accounts (all of which are identical) "flimsy" in any way, shape or form?

Please get your information straight before posting about this again.

[criddic3]

Another big problem with this story is that apparently some of the people who talked about this incident were not even there, so it's a little difficult to corroborate it. The person at the center of this is apparently also conveniently dead, so he can't confirm or denounce the incident. That makes it a dead-end attack. It will fade into obscurity along with so many attacks on both sides. Romney oppenents want to prop up this story but I can't see the justification for it with such flimsy accounts. The problem with reaching so far back in time is that people tend to care more about what you did as an adult than what you did as a teenager. For instance, I personally could care less if President Obama went to school in Indonesia as a kid. Sure, you could raise questions about his lack of Americana growing up, but in the end he's still the president. More important are his policies and current attitude. In 2008 he said he was new and different kind of politician, and even those of us who didn't vote for him said "okay, you have the reigns...let's see what you do with them." In 2012, we know he is just like the kind of politician people have become disenchanted with. All this nonsense about dogs and whether a prank was played in high school is just a distraction.

[Big Magilla]

It sounds like an incident out of the 1950s play/film, Tea and Sympathy in which being "different" was a euphemism for being gay. It's possible Romney had a 50s persepctive in the 60s and targeted te guy simply becasue he was "different", e.g. had long hair before it was popular. But, yes, his response to this is more offensive than the long ago incident itself.

But does the electorate care? The latest Rasmussen Poll (5/7-5/9) has Romney at 50% and Obama at 43% nationwide.

[Sonic Youth]

After all, he was for socialized medicine before he was against it.

The thing is, I would counter the whole "being gay" wasn't an issue back in the 1960s. It most certainly was. Why else would there have been a mass exodus to someplace like San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 1970s? Hollywood actors took on beards to avoid people thinking they were gay. Homosexuals were made laughing stocks well before the 1960s...there is little doubt in my mind that being gay was pondered in that era. Of course, someone from that era might be better able to speak to that assertion.

You answered your own question. Hollywood beards and "gay flight" were ways to render homosexuality invisible and maintain the innocence of the cultural status quo, and that way no one has to think about it. I suppose it may make a difference when in the 1960s this happened - 1963 and 1968 were very different worlds - but that's just the difference between bullying a "sissy" and bullying a "queer". It sort of amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? Poor Mitt! He's suddenly on the wrong side of two current zeitgeists hitting their peaks, pro-gay marriage and anti-bullying.

That said, let's give it up to the Obama campaign's brilliant oppo research team. They couldn't have timed it any better. Only one day after Obama gives his unqualified support for gay marriage, this mysteriously hits the news cycle. Too bad the dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car was leaked during the primary campaigns. The day before that story broke, Obama could've called on congress to pass tougher animal-abuse sanctions.

[OscarGuy]

After all, he was for socialized medicine before he was against it.

The thing is, I would counter the whole "being gay" wasn't an issue back in the 1960s. It most certainly was. Why else would there have been a mass exodus to someplace like San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 1970s? Hollywood actors took on beards to avoid people thinking they were gay. Homosexuals were made laughing stocks well before the 1960s...there is little doubt in my mind that being gay was pondered in that era. Of course, someone from that era might be better able to speak to that assertion.

But Tee is right. Even if it wasn't "because we thought he was gay," the fact that he not only did it even if for the fun of it but unlike those around him was so insignificant in his mind that he put it aside speaks a lot to his character. I may not be as far removed from my high school days as Romney is, but every thing that I did wrong and felt bad about I remember like it were yesterday. Our minds have a tendency to amplify the good and supplant the bad and this is a common trait for most people I know who have any measure of empathy or remorse. Only the remorseless would put such an incident out of their mind entirely.

[Sabin]

Romney is saying that A) he's sorry for the incident, B) he doesn't remember the incident, and C) nobody was thinking about who's gay and who isn't in the 1960s. The last comment strikes me as especially problematic because it speaks to a special kind of homophobia. Romney saying that he didn't do it because he knew the kid was gay is the same thing as saying "I didn't beat him up because he was homosexual! I just did it because he was talkin' funny! In a lispy way!" Romney coded this guy as "Other" and lashed out in mean-spiritedness.

Now in no way should this overshadow the more pressing problematic decisions of Romney's adult career, but there is a desperation in all three of these defenses combined that speaks to Romney's character. The good ol' Mitt Romney I will say whatever I have to say to make all of whatever I did go away without having to stand by my choices.

[Mister Tee]

Normally I'm inclined to snort at stories that go back in time like this. I know I did things at grade school/high school age of which I'm not proud, and I presume that's true of most. But a few things about this story are different:

First: Most of those things of which I'm not proud were things i went along with/didn't try to stop. Romney was by every account the instigator here. That carries a higher level of culpability.

Second: Romney claims not to remember the incident (even while being sure it didn't happen because he thought the victim was gay). Everyone else involved -- Romney's buddies, the perpetrators -- say it sticks with them as an incident of which they're intensely ashamed. Seems to me there ar only two possibilities for this dichotomy, equally bad: either Romney's a lying sack of shit, or this incident of which everyone else has horrible memories truly didn't strike him as memorable...which would put him in sociopath range.

Had Romney just said, Yeah,it happened; I was a young jerk, and I'd never do anything like that today...I believe he'd have skated free, maybe even gained in public assessment. But the hard-to-credit denial just reinforces, as flipp says, all the other lack-of-empathy incidents in the Romney narrative: the dog on the roof, liking to fire people, making fun of the local cookies he's served. The guy guy seems to be, at heart, a dick.

What a dilemma for the Log Cabin republicans, who bent over backwards this week to complain about Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage, and are now in the position of advocating for a guy who used to harass them in adolescence.

[Sonic Youth]

Mitt Romney just apologized for bullying a supposedly-gay student when Romney was in boarding school. The boy dyed his hair blond; and, Romney pinned him down and forcefully cut his hair while the boy cried for help.

This just speaks to the rottenness that's at the core of Romney's character—his profound lack of empathy for others and the belief that he thinks he can terrorize people that he perceives as weaker than him. This story, the one about Seamus, his Irish Setter, the tricks played on the blind, his utter glee at firing people—it all accumulates to paint the picture of a man utterly lacking in compassion. That's certainly not someone I'd like to be President of the United States.

Well, yes he did say this:

"I'm not going be too concerned about their piece. They talked about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school and they describe some that you just say to yourself, ‘well, back in high school I did some dumb things.’ And if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize," Romney told Kilmeade.

But he also said this:

"I don’t remember that incident," Romney said about the Washington Post piece accusing him of clipping a gay student's hair.

"certainly don’t believe that I, or I can’t speak for other people of course, thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furtherest thing from our minds back in the 1960s," Romney told FOX News Radio.

Such a politican.

[criddic3]

Mitt Romney just apologized for bullying a supposedly-gay student when Romney was in boarding school. The boy dyed his hair blond; and, Romney pinned him down and forcefully cut his hair while the boy cried for help.

This just speaks to the rottenness that's at the core of Romney's character—his profound lack of empathy for others and the belief that he thinks he can terrorize people that he perceives as weaker than him. This story, the one about Seamus, his Irish Setter, the tricks played on the blind, his utter glee at firing people—it all accumulates to paint the picture of a man utterly lacking in compassion. That's certainly not someone I'd like to be President of the United States.

Well, yes he did say this:

"I'm not going be too concerned about their piece. They talked about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school and they describe some that you just say to yourself, ‘well, back in high school I did some dumb things.’ And if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize," Romney told Kilmeade.

But he also said this:

"I don’t remember that incident," Romney said about the Washington Post piece accusing him of clipping a gay student's hair.

"certainly don’t believe that I, or I can’t speak for other people of course, thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furtherest thing from our minds back in the 1960s," Romney told FOX News Radio.

[flipp525]

Mitt Romney just apologized for bullying a supposedly-gay student when Romney was in boarding school. The boy dyed his hair blond; and, Romney pinned him down and forcefully cut his hair while the boy cried for help.

This just speaks to the rottenness that's at the core of Romney's character—his profound lack of empathy for others and the belief that he thinks he can terrorize people that he perceives as weaker than him. This story, the one about Seamus, his Irish Setter, the tricks played on the blind, his utter glee at firing people—it all accumulates to paint the picture of a man utterly lacking in compassion. That's certainly not someone I'd like to be President of the United States.

[Greg]

Mitt Romney just apologized for bullying a supposedly-gay student when Romney was in boarding school. The boy dyed his hair blond; and, Romney pinned him down and forcefully cut his hair while the boy cried for help.