Mitt Romney’s campaign calls gay teen bullying report ‘exaggerated’

[Birdpreacher]

Mitt Romney’s campaign calls gay teen bullying report ‘exaggerated’
news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/10/mitt-romneys-campaign-calls-gay-teen-bullying-report-exaggerated/

** Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents **
washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named.
…

Romney is now the presumed Republican presidential nominee. In a radio interview Thursday morning, Romney said he didn’t remember the incident but apologized for pranks he helped orchestrate that he said “might have gone too far.”

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Even if true, we’re going to use pranks a candidate did over 40 years ago to judge his character by?

This is really going to be a horrible campaign season.

Jim

 

[scipio337]

Make that 47 years ago.

And according to the WaPo story, it wasn’t due to any presumed sexual orientation, but the length of his hair.

Got desperation?

 

[oldcelt]

Even if true, we’re going to use pranks a candidate did over 40 years ago to judge his character by?

This is really going to be a horrible campaign season.

I agree completely Jim. Both sides have no shame when it comes to picking out the most trivial or irrelevant points in an effort to defame the other side.

John

 

[Birdpreacher]

Even if true, we’re going to use pranks a candidate did over 40 years ago to judge his character by?

This is really going to be a horrible campaign season.

Jim

It speaks to his character as a person who grew up wealthy and separate from “regular” society, and was already becoming a person very intolerant of anyone that thought, or acted, in any way that didn’t conform to what Mitt saw as the correct way.

 

[28562]

So if this is fair game, does that mean Obama has to be held accountable this time around for his cocaine use and hanging out with terrorists?

Surely, the media wouldn’t look the other way, would they?

 

[scipio337]

It speaks to his character as a person who grew up wealthy and separate from “regular” society, and was already becoming a person very intolerant of anyone that thought, or acted, in any way that didn’t conform to what Mitt saw as the correct way.

So is this a class envy story, or a “Why do Republicans hate teh gays??” story?

 

[Birdpreacher]

Make that 47 years ago.

And according to the WaPo story, it wasn’t due to any presumed sexual orientation, but the length of his hair.

Got desperation?

Lets not forget that it was Romney’s main advisor that originated the “Obama ate dog as a child” push from a few weeks back.
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/04/mitt_romney_s_campaign_is_quicker_to_punch_back_against_barack_obama_than_john_mccain_s_campaign_four_years_ago_.html
But yes the campaign is going to get nasty from both sides

 

[scipio337]

Lets not forget that it was Romney’s main advisor that originated the “Obama ate dog as a child” push from a few weeks back.
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/04/mitt_romney_s_campaign_is_quicker_to_punch_back_against_barack_obama_than_john_mccain_s_campaign_four_years_ago_.html
But yes the campaign is going to get nasty from both sides

You do remember it was a response to the Obama admin continuing to use the “Seamus on the roof” story, right??

dailykos.com/story/2012/04/30/1087572/-Remember-Seamus-President-Obama-punks-Romney-at-White-House-Correspondents-Dinner

huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/why-seamus-matters_b_1433610.html

Like your “Romney Camp Muzzles Gay Advisor”, this issue is an epic fail.

 

[Birdpreacher]

So is this a class envy story, or a “Why do Republicans hate teh gays??” story?

I dunno it sounds like a Mitt being a bully story to me. But those are both fair inferences to me. (Idk about the republicans hating the gays slant, I know too many gay republicans to paint with that broad a brush.)

Also the kid getting bullied also went to the expensive prep school, so its rich on rich violence. I doubt this will enflame a class warfare rhetoric as he was not beating up on a kid for being poor but just for being different.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

It speaks to his character as a person who grew up wealthy and separate from “regular” society, and was already becoming a person very intolerant of anyone that thought, or acted, in any way that didn’t conform to what Mitt saw as the correct way.

Baloney.

I did things at age 20 that I would be too embarrassed to admit to, but it says nothing about my character today.

Most of us grow in character as we age. It can be good or bad, depending on the path we take in life.

Jim

 

[qui_est_ce]

Lets not forget that it was Romney’s main advisor that originated the “Obama ate dog as a child” push from a few weeks back.
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/04/mitt_romney_s_campaign_is_quicker_to_punch_back_against_barack_obama_than_john_mccain_s_campaign_four_years_ago_.html
But yes the campaign is going to get nasty from both sides

Obama made it public in Dreams of my Father

 

[Birdpreacher]

Like your “Romney Camp Muzzles Gay Advisor”, this issue is an epic fail.

Lol you’re here educating me, so it is by no means a fail. I enjoy your insight and interpretation of stories. It is truly a pleasure any time you post

 

[_Abyssinia]

Mitt Romney’s campaign calls gay teen bullying report ‘exaggerated’
news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/10/mitt-romneys-campaign-calls-gay-teen-bullying-report-exaggerated/

** Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents **
washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

This was nearly 50 years ago! It is not right but high school students do some stupid things sometimes. I think you will find a lot of boys who do pranks and hair cutting, particularly at all boys schools like the one Romney attended.
On a radio show with Brian Kilmeade, he said “Back in high school, I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that. I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some might have gone too far and for that, I apologize.” He denied recollection of attack on Lauber: “I don’t remember that incident. I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s so that was not the case.”
2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/mitt-romney-apologizes-for-high-school-bullying.php

 

[april32010]

holding someone down and cutting their hair isn’t a prank,it is assault with a deadly weapon.

 

[Birdpreacher]

Baloney.

I did things at age 20 that I would be too embarrassed to admit to, but it says nothing about my character today.

Most of us grow in character as we age. It can be good or bad, depending on the path we take in life.

Jim

That is a very fair assessment. I agree that *some *people grow out of being bullies/idiots. However, not all people grow out of it. Society has always judged a person based on their past. For instance, felons can’t vote.

For example, knowing that a person tortured animals as a child would make you think twice about hiring him to watch your kids.

 

[Suudy]

It speaks to his character as a person who grew up wealthy and separate from “regular” society, and was already becoming a person very intolerant of anyone that thought, or acted, in any way that didn’t conform to what Mitt saw as the correct way.

There doesn’t appear to be any evidence whatsoever that this was motivated by the “presumed sexuality” of Lauber. Indeed, the recollection of Romeny’s classmate:
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
The only evidence was that it as about his hair, not his sexuality.

Also, note that the only other accusation was from a “closeted gay student”, without any other corroboration.

I don’t see anything to suggest that Mr. Romney was anything more than a mischievous prankster. I don’t think behavior at that age is a sign of future character, unless that behavior continues. And there is no evidence that it has. Indeed, it appears that it is gone.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Baloney.

I did things at age 20 that I would be too embarrassed to admit to, but it says nothing about my character today.

Most of us grow in character as we age. It can be good or bad, depending on the path we take in life.

Jim

True. I would be embarrassed as well for some of those things I did as a young man. Participated in worse. Witnessed MUCH worse. Heard others tell about MUCH, MUCH worse.

But it’s true people can change. I remember one of the guys in my college class, a day student of Italian extraction, who was well understood to be the toughest guy in the whole school. One of his favorite things to do was to go into a local park that was infested by hoodlums at night, swinging a chain, challenging whomever wanted to take him on. And he did get takers from time to time. Such was his prowess that he left many a person severely bloodied and beaten.

Many years later, I saw his name on the letterhead of one of the leading Orthopaedic Surgery clinics in a city in my state. I was just thunderstruck. I was nearby and thought I would just drop in and say hello. It was him, but what a change! Mild-mannered, kindly, a man at the top of his profession.

 

[Jerry_Miah]

This was nearly 50 years ago! It is not right but high school students do some stupid things sometimes. I think you will find a lot of boys who do pranks and hair cutting, particularly at all boys schools like the one Romney attended.

I agree with you, actually, with two caveats:

1. The Repubs have pounded Obama things that happened when he was very young, like his admitted sampling of drugs, and even things when he was a child, like what school he attended. They even tried to make an issue of the fact that he might have been served dogmeat as a small child when living in a place in the world where that was normal. So, sorry Repubs, you set the rules, so game on.
2. This should be used to open up the national discussion of Republican policies about gays, the recent firing of Romney’s high-level adviser for being gay. In fact many on this board have argued gay bullying is over-emphasized, and yet here we have a presidential candidate who bullied gays when he was in high school.

 

[mary_bobo]

If we keep talking about things that happened that long ago, I guess that means that it is much more important than the economy, the deficit, etc. We all do stupid things when we are young and we have no way of knowing the reason, if any was present at the time, that the boy’s hair was cut. This is the same kind of judgementalism that we see all too frequently on the forum.