WaPo: High School Romney Bullied Gay Student Over Hair...

WaPo: High School Romney Bullied Gay Student Over Hair...

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“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.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

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. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

'I MIGHT HAVE GONE TOO FAR'

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney made a surprise appearance on Fox host Brian Kilmeade's radio show Thursday morning to respond to a lengthy Washington Post story on his time as a prep-school prankster and occasional bully of closeted gay students.

"They talk about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school," Romney said. "And they describe some that you just say to yourself, back in high school I just did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended by it, obviously I apologize."

“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 added.

Romney suggested during the interview that the acts he was apologizing for were merely youthful indiscretions; the Post described him pinning a closeted gay classmate to the ground and cutting his long hair, for example. But with the story suggesting latent homophobia in an adolescent Romney and with President Barack Obama having endorsed same-sex marriage on Wednesday, the piece reverberated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/1 ... 06382.html

Gee, typical "severely conservative" apology..."IF anybody was hurt or offended, THEN I apologize..." Mister Etch-a-Sketch latent HOMOPHOBE kind of goes back a long way... But at least he admits he did it....

(Kind of reminds you of the usual crap about Jeremiah Wright, doesn't it? Insert standard irrelevant Jeremiah Wright/Bill Ayers crap here: ____________

LadyJazzer wrote: Gee, typical "severely conservative" apology..."IF anybody was hurt or offended, THEN I apologize..." Mister Etch-a-Sketch latent HOMOPHOBE kind of goes back a long way... But at least he admits he did it....

(Kind of reminds you of the usual crap about Jeremiah Wright, doesn't it? Insert standard irrelevant Jeremiah Wright/Bill Ayers crap here: ____________

LadyJazzer wrote: Throw-it-up-on-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks manufactured-outrage-of-the-day... :Snooze

But, up to your usual standard...

My my - it didn't take long for the "progressive" community to start in on their politics of personal destruction crusade, did it now. Usual "progressive" nonsense of applying modern standards to historical times. Hazing was much more prevalent back in the 1960's - not to mention that it was what, nearly 50 years ago? Lots of things that happened in the 1960's that were tolerated, in some cases even encouraged, by society in general are no longer tolerated or encouraged today. Back in the 1960's two boys who seemed to have a problem were told by the authorities at the public schools to put on a pair of boxing gloves in the gym and fight until they got the problem between them settled - something we would never tolerate in our schools today.

If this is the best that the "progressives" have got, events which happened 50 years ago, they must think that their prospects for victory in November are a lot bleaker than anyone thought.

PrintSmith wrote: My my - it didn't take long for the "progressive" community to start in on their politics of personal destruction crusade, did it now. Usual "progressive" nonsense of applying modern standards to historical times. Hazing was much more prevalent back in the 1960's - not to mention that it was what, nearly 50 years ago? Lots of things that happened in the 1960's that were tolerated, in some cases even encouraged, by society in general are no longer tolerated or encouraged today. Back in the 1960's two boys who seemed to have a problem were told by the authorities at the public schools to put on a pair of boxing gloves in the gym and fight until they got the problem between them settled - something we would never tolerate in our schools today.

If this is the best that the "progressives" have got, events which happened 50 years ago, they must think that their prospects for victory in November are a lot bleaker than anyone thought.

Excellent... no different than Obama eating dog meat when he was young... different era, different cultural norms... this is a non-issue.

This is going to be funny watching the libs scramble to find any little bit of evidence that Romney wasn't perfect like Obama obviously was when they were both young. I wonder if the Dems will be interested in Romneys college transcripts? I hope so, I hope we can compare them to Obama's as soon as he releases them :Whistle

I did get a kick out of Obama's address up in Boulder when he stood on that stage and said that he and Michelle were where they are today as a result of grants, scholarships and loans given the fact that Obama sealed his and Michelle's college records. That'll keep the fact checkers from ascertaining the accuracy of his speech for sure.

PrintSmith wrote: I did get a kick out of Obama's address up in Boulder when he stood on that stage and said that he and Michelle were where they are today as a result of grants, scholarships and loans given the fact that Obama sealed his and Michelle's college records. That'll keep the fact checkers from ascertaining the accuracy of his speech for sure.

And how did the Obama's "seal" their college records?

Their records were not sealed by them, just as any other college attendee can not "seal" their records. That is just another conservative right wing myth floating around the blogsphere.

Mitt Romney Bullied LGBT Youth Commission As Governor

WASHINGTON -- Just hours after the Washington Post published a piece on Mitt Romney's prep school pranks -- which included forcibly cutting the hair of a student who stood out for his nonconformity and his perceived homosexuality -- the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had already apologized in a radio interview, saying he was sorry for any "dumb things" he might have done "a long time ago."

Presumably, by the time Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he had moved on from verbal taunts and physical take-downs. But gay-rights advocates argue that his policies toward the LGBT community as governor were just as troubling.

"It's very clear that Mr. Romney doesn't get it," said Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which focuses on supporting LGBT youth. "Bullying, harassment and assault in schools are serious issues. His own behavior was deeply troubling when he was a student, and his actions as governor of Massachusetts were also an assault on the LGBT students that the state had set out to protect."

"Just looking at his current behavior, he's so politically opportunistic in his willingness to score political points on the backs of LGBT people -- if that's not the definition of a bully, I don't know what is," said Kara Suffredini, executive director of the pro-gay rights group MassEquality.

The Romney campaign did not return a request for comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/1 ... 06231.html

Gee, this homophobe is such a sweetheart... :VeryScared:

Former Romney Classmate: 'A Lot Of Guys' Have 'Really Negative Memories' Of Mitt...

An anonymous former high-school classmate of Mitt Romney's told ABC News on Thursday that many fellow students have "really negative memories" of the Republican presidential candidate, and that his behavior during those years was "like 'Lord of the Flies.'"

The interview came on the heels of a Washington Post report that detailed Romney's behavior as a student at the Cranbrook School, a prestigious institution in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. In the article's most explosive revelation, multiple classmates of Romney's recall how he led a group of students that forcibly cut the hair of John Lauber, a student who was thought to be gay.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/1 ... 07757.html

Awww, what a sweetie... And the fond memories just keep coming....

WOW I am in shock,,, I never did anything in High school I was ashamed of later, But I am sure LJ and Archer have never ever done anything at all seeing as they came up in the 1800's.