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

[ringil]

No, that’s the white side of his family, he threw them under the bus during his campaign. Even though his white grandmother paid for his expensive education in Hawaii, he made her out to be a rampant racist who would cross the street to avoid black people.

Obama loves his Grandmother. The comments he made regarding her were entirely appropriate and didn’t throw her under the bus at all. He gave a powerful and meaningful example of how family dynamics can play into race.

Sensitive to “white bashing” much?

 

[Jerry_Miah]

It looks like this has blown up in the Washigton Posts face. The family denies it and they admit the misquoted a key source who in turn admits he never heard about the incident until the WAPO bought it. .

Simply not true:
thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/11/more-on-the-not-actually-debunked-bully-story.html

One Post source, a fellow named White, was described in the original story as having“long been bothered” by the Lauber incident. Apparently, he didn’t know about that incident until the Post told him; he knew about Romney’s pranks more generally. The Post adjust the copy online and in later editions. Okay, that’s a factual error, but **it isn’t one that has any direct bearing at all on whether the Lauber incident happened as the paper described. **

…one of Lauber’s sisters has no memory of the incident. It is not that she denies it happened. She just didn’t know. She goes on to tell ABC that her brother was a very private person and that she was off at college. Her last comment below suggests that she allows that such a thing could well have happened to her brother:

When ABC News showed her the story, Christine Lauber’s eyes welled up with tears and she became agitated.

She also corrected the story, saying her brother was a boarder, not a day student.

She described her brother as a “very unusual person.”

“He didn’t care about running with the peer group,” Christine Lauber said. “What’s wrong with that?”

In that last quote, she is pretty clearly envisioning the event as plausible and feeling horribly for her brother. She and other family members apparently object to how their brother was portrayed in the article, but that’s not the same as denying that the incident happened, which I don’t see that she’s done. Indeed it appears that she implicitly accepts at the least that it could have happened.

It serves no honest purpose to try to pretend Romney’s assault and battery on the weeping “different” kid didn’t happen just because of one indirect factual error in the story and the fact that the victim’s sister never knew about the assault on her brother (she doesn’t deny it as possible).

This is a typical and unfortunate right wing rhetorical tactic, to find a “t” that was not crossed in a report and use it to deny that the whole thing is not true. It’s effective on those who are not following a story and don’t want to believe it anyway, but it’s not a well-meaning or charitable method of discussion.

 

[Jeanne_S]

A long time ago when I was a teenager, a person could be bullied for:

Being dumb, being smart, being thin, being fat, bad complexion, ugly car, being short, having small breasts, having large breasts, having rich parents, having poor parents, having no parents; having ancestry that was Polish, Bohiemian, German, Hungarian, Russian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, African, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Irish, or Indian.

Why is it only important if a person is bullied for possible sexual orientation? Has human nature changed that much?

Only in that we have become a society of hypersensitive crybabies,not that there is anything wrong with that!

 

[estesbob]

Simply not true:
thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/11/more-on-the-not-actually-debunked-bully-story.html

It serves no honest purpose to try to pretend Romney’s assault and battery on the weeping “different” kid didn’t happen just because of one indirect factual error in the story and the fact that the victim’s sister never knew about the assault on her brother (she doesn’t deny it as possible).

This is a typical and unfortunate right wing rhetorical tactic, to find a “t” that was not crossed in a report and use it to deny that the whole thing is not true. It’s effective on those who are not following a story and don’t want to believe it anyway, but it’s not a well-meaning or charitable method of discussion.

So your quoting two people who have no recollection of the incident make the story more credible? And the WAPO admitting they misquoted the guy (huge difference between it bothered for years and I just heard about it two years ago)

 

[_Abyssinia]

Simply not true:
thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/11/more-on-the-not-actually-debunked-bully-story.html

It serves no honest purpose to try to pretend Romney’s assault and battery on the weeping “different” kid didn’t happen just because of one indirect factual error in the story and the fact that the victim’s sister never knew about the assault on her brother (she doesn’t deny it as possible).

This is a typical and unfortunate right wing rhetorical tactic, to find a “t” that was not crossed in a report and use it to deny that the whole thing is not true. It’s effective on those who are not following a story and don’t want to believe it anyway, but it’s not a well-meaning or charitable method of discussion.

There is no way to verify the alleged incident. There are no school records that confirm it happened.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Washington Post Ombudsman Gives Up Any Pretense of Credibility

pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/12/washington-post-ombudsman-gives-up-any-pretense-of-credibility

 

[Jerry_Miah]

There is no way to verify the alleged incident. There are no school records that confirm it happened.

Oh, yes there is. This is a standard way that we verify that something happened, like in a police case. Interview witnesses, compare their stories, find what the stories have in common, see if the witnesses are credible or in collusion, etc. In this case, friends (including even a former Republican official) all forthrightly talk about what happened; many of them express their own feelings of regret and guilt about it.

So, sorry, but that tactic won’t work.

You might wish the story were not true, but please don’t try to say that your wish makes it not true.

 

[estesbob]

Washington Post Ombudsman Gives Up Any Pretense of Credibility

pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/12/washington-post-ombudsman-gives-up-any-pretense-of-credibility

Thanks for the link. Like I said the smear blew up in their faces.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Oh, yes there is. This is a standard way that we verify that something happened, like in a police case. Interview witnesses, compare their stories, find what the stories have in common, see if the witnesses are credible or in collusion, etc. In this case, friends (including even a former Republican official) all forthrightly talk about what happened; many of them express their own feelings of regret and guilt about it.

So, sorry, but that tactic won’t work.

You might wish the story were not true, but please don’t try to say that your wish makes it not true.

Police case would have a record. There are no records of the incident taking place. There is no proof the 4 claimed witnesses were in fact witnesses.

The Washington Post quotes a story from one of the so called sources David Seed about a run in he had with John Lauber:

Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Lauber died in 2004, according to his three sisters

That was an unethical posting from the Washington Post because John Lauber is not here to verify quotes that are attributed to him by David Seed. I have read that that is a firing offense for any reputable news organization for such an unethical post. That conversation attributed to David Seed is key to the Washington Post claim that John Lauber had a negative lifelong impact on his and yet there is no way verify exact words claimed by David Seed that John Lauber had said.

Romney’s childhood friend Phillip Maxwell says in Auto Mag, ‘I’m a Democrat, so I won’t vote for him,’ 'But he’d probably make a pretty good President. He’s very smart, very principled.’

Matthew Friedemann, critic of the alleged Lauber hair cutting incident said in the Washington Post of Romney, 'When Romney left the campus on weekends, he never invited him. ‘I didn’t quite fit into the social circle. I didn’t have a car when I was 16.

This seems to elude that he though Mitt Romney looked down on people who did not have a car.

According to Romney’s friend Gregg Dearth in the Auto Mag article. ‘Mitt didn’t get a car at sixteen–ike many Cranbrook kids did.’

Gregg Dearth says in Auto Mag:

‘With his powerful father, ‘He could have been an arrogant, stuck-up, snotty little brat,’ says Dearth. ‘But he was a great guy – an all-American kid with a great sense of humor, very self-effacing.’ And although it’s been documented that Romney played a teenage prank or two – including once impersonating a police officer in order to scare some female friends – Dearth remembers Mitt as the most straitlaced kid in the neighborhood. ‘Those of us who tested the boundaries in high school still marvel at the self-discipline he displayed,’ Dearth continues. ‘With a father who was then governor, Mitt knew where the line was and never crossed it. I think it was a sign of his deep respect for his dad and the way he was brought up. I often tell people he has more integrity than anyone I know. And I was raised a Unitarian.’

automobilemag.com/features/news/1206_mitt_romney

The Washington post and the information revealed in Auto Mag about Romney’s high school years present two different portraits.

 

[Jerry_Miah]

Police case would have a record. There are no records of the incident taking place. There is no proof the 4 claimed witnesses were in fact witnesses.

The Washington Post quotes a story from one of the so called sources David Seed about a run in he had with John Lauber:

That was an unethical posting from the Washington Post because John Lauber is not here to verify quotes that are attributed to him by David Seed. I have read that that is a firing offense for any reputable news organization for such an unethical post. That conversation attributed to David Seed is key to the Washington Post claim that John Lauber had a negative lifelong impact on his and yet there is no way verify exact words claimed by David Seed that John Lauber had said.

Romney’s childhood friend Phillip Maxwell says in Auto Mag, ‘I’m a Democrat, so I won’t vote for him,’ 'But he’d probably make a pretty good President. He’s very smart, very principled.’

Matthew Friedemann, critic of the alleged Lauber hair cutting incident said in the Washington Post of Romney, 'When Romney left the campus on weekends, he never invited him. ‘I didn’t quite fit into the social circle. I didn’t have a car when I was 16.

This seems to elude that he though Mitt Romney looked down on people who did not have a car.

According to Romney’s friend Gregg Dearth in the Auto Mag article. ‘Mitt didn’t get a car at sixteen–ike many Cranbrook kids did.’

Gregg Dearth says in Auto Mag:

‘With his powerful father, ‘He could have been an arrogant, stuck-up, snotty little brat,’ says Dearth. ‘But he was a great guy – an all-American kid with a great sense of humor, very self-effacing.’ And although it’s been documented that Romney played a teenage prank or two – including once impersonating a police officer in order to scare some female friends – Dearth remembers Mitt as the most straitlaced kid in the neighborhood. ‘Those of us who tested the boundaries in high school still marvel at the self-discipline he displayed,’ Dearth continues. ‘With a father who was then governor, Mitt knew where the line was and never crossed it. I think it was a sign of his deep respect for his dad and the way he was brought up. I often tell people he has more integrity than anyone I know. And I was raised a Unitarian.’

automobilemag.com/features/news/1206_mitt_romney

The Washington post and the information revealed in Auto Mag about Romney’s high school years present two different portraits.

Auto Mag? Ooookay. You do realize that someone in “Auto Mag” saying Romney was a heckuva guy in high school does not disprove several of Romney’s friends all confirming the assault and battery incident by Romney that they witnessed, don’t you?

You do realize the car thing is very silly thing to point out as somehow disproving the attack, don’t you?

Also, there is a certain extreme irony that you would try to question the journalistic credibility of the WaPo, when you regulary link to sources with little credibility at all, like “Pajamas Media”.

And it’s not just the WaPo – ABC has separate interviews with at least one witness. Have you read this? abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/former-romney-classmate-describes-bullying-supreme-a-pack-of-dogs-who-targeted-differentboy/

Again, these are four men, including a former Republican official, who were friends with or knew Romney, and some of them expressed remorse about their own behavior in relation to the attack. To simply say “There is no proof the 4 claimed witnesses were in fact witnesses” is nonsensical. Are you trying to say that they didn’t know Romney? Maybe they’re actors posing as former classmates? Come on, let’s be real. Even Romney admits doing things, and he indirectly acknowledged he could have done this horrible attack, but he doesn’t remember. (“I don’t recall the incident myself. I’ve seen the reports and I won’t argue with that.”)

You might want to just deal with the fact that Romney did this when he was eighteen. You can argue, as “gilliam” does here forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9288690&postcount=489
that Romney has apparently changed since those days, and that it was a long time ago. But please, let’s not get into the moon-landing-was-a-hoax kind of argument.

 

[Jerry_Miah]

That is uncharitable of you. Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly, don’t use his name as a verb. May God rest his soul.

How rude.

Please. Mr.Breitbart left behind a website that bears his name and that continues in the tradition of fake news and right wing apologetics (and, to Mr. Breitbart’s credit, much less competently than when he was alive).

 

[Jeanne_S]

Please. Mr.Breitbart left behind a website that bears his name and that continues in the tradition of fake news and right wing apologetics (and, to Mr. Breitbart’s credit, much less competently than when he was alive).

Jerry,Me thinks you are a pot stirrer

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Oh, yes there is. This is a standard way that we verify that something happened, like in a police case. Interview witnesses, compare their stories, find what the stories have in common, see if the witnesses are credible or in collusion, etc. In this case, friends (including even a former Republican official) all forthrightly talk about what happened; many of them express their own feelings of regret and guilt about it.

So, sorry, but that tactic won’t work.

You might wish the story were not true, but please don’t try to say that your wish makes it not true.

The guy it supposedly happened to is dead, so he can’t confirm or deny it. How very convenient.

If Romney was such a bad guy, why can’t they find someone still alive who thinks he was a bully?

 

[Jerry_Miah]

The guy it supposedly happened to is dead, so he can’t confirm or deny it. How very convenient.

If Romney was such a bad guy, why can’t they find someone still alive who thinks he was a bully?

You’re confused. All the people who went public about Romney’s attack on the kid are living people. One even said what Romney did was “assault and battery”. Some of them express their own remorse about their part in the cruel behavior. They are all very much alive.

 

[Jerry_Miah]

Jerry,Me thinks you are a pot stirrer

Umm… thanks?

 

[rlg94086]

Simply not true. Sorry, you can’t “breitbart” this away.

I don’t know what that means…

 

[TheRealJuliane]

You’re confused. All the people who went public about Romney’s attack on the kid are living people. One even said what Romney did was “assault and battery”. Some of them express their own remorse about their part in the cruel behavior. They are all very much alive.

I am NOT confused. The “victim” himself is dead. All of the people who went public “lean Democrat.” The whole thing is politically motivated, and that is the most despicable thing about it, that the Democrat attack machine would use a dead man in that way, to advance their agenda. He is not here to say “Don’t use me for your games!” Or, maybe he’d agree to be used. We can’t know, but it’s not fair to him or his family to keep going with this. I hope his sisters sue the Washington Post. I sure would.

 

[Dejagirl]

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.

I think all of us would change some choices we made when we were younger if we could. Making good and poor choices is a natural progression of life. Through those choices there are consequences and we learn and grow. God helps us along the way. I certainly don’t think any of this has to do with one’s income. When Mitt’s father left him his large inheritance, he dontated it to charity. I doubt you will find many today who would do the same. The wealth he has now, he earned on his own through his own work and effort. I think that says a great deal about his character, and in a very good way.

The way Obama is trying to spread division in America with his the class envy and jealousy talk is beyond terrible. Is this what we have become as American’s, as Catholics? People who no longer strive for the American dream through hard work and faith, but want to just bring others down who have more because we are envious or because life gets a little tough at times?

Each of us will have crosses to bear and some will have more than others. It’s through these crosses that we hopefully become closer to God. Isn’t that the ultimate goal after all. We shouldn’t be bothered by someone else’s financial success.

 

[ishii]

Good points, Dejagirl.

I think all of us would change some choices we made when we were younger if we could.

Amen.

The way Obama is trying to spread division in America with his the class envy and jealousy talk is beyond terrible.

You’re right. That is all Obama and the Democrats have - Pitting groups against each other. All the Obama talk about “there’s no blue state America or Red state America” was just empty rhetoric. For Obama and the left, it is all about getting power and keeping it. So far his strategy seems to be backfiring.

Is this what we have become as American’s, as Catholics? People who no longer strive for the American dream through hard work and faith, but want to just bring others down who have more because we are envious or because life gets a little tough at times?

I think a majority of Americans would agree with you. That is why I am confident that come November 6, Obama will be repudiated.

Ishii

 

[oldcelt]

Why don’t you all let this thread die and see what happened in Arizona today?

Romney has bigger problems than this.

John