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You know sometimes I am a little put off by Ed's strident approach to some of the news stories, but I have to say that in THIS case his disgust with this story almost exactly reflects my own.
What bothers me most is Romney's initial reaction to being questioned about the event: "ha, ha, I don't remember that, ha, ha". Even if you cut him slack for being a bully decades ago (I don't), the fact that he thought it was funny TODAY speaks volumes. The dog on the roof, ha ha, that's funny to him today too. Empathy? Nonexistent in this man.
ReplyDelete+1 "Empathy? Nonexistent in this man."
DeleteThere's a pecking order in school - Romney was the son of the *sitting Governor* at the time. I'm sure most classmates were cowed by that fact.
Remember too on this Mother's Day weekend that he's the exact opposite of our President. Romneybot is a bully, Obama was a victim of bullying throughout school (see book about Obama's mother "A Singular Woman" where one of his mother's friends recalled seeing Barack being taunted for his race, and Barack's mother responded "He's used to it.")
Romneybot, an empathetic-less empty shell, as President? Someone who will continue to support running the so-called "financial institutions" as casinos and widen the income-gap between the 99% and the 1%?
Voters need to be aware of the differences between the two candidates, and what it means to what our country will look like four years down the road.
"People do change and ...few of us would want to be judged by some of the things we did in our teens. But that’s because we’re ashamed of those things: We’ve grown, we’ve come to understand that what we did was wrong and to regret our actions."
DeleteHas Romney grown out of that?
http://www.jamisonfoser.com/blog/2012/05/mitt-romney-bully.html
He is absolutely disgusting (Romney). The more you learn about him I just can't believe anyone thinks he is a good person. From how he treated his OWN dog to how he treated classmates is appalling. Why would I think he would want to make my life better?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it always okay when republicans do it? You know it is just boys being boys. Not when it is a democrat. No way!
When a rich elitist treats other rich elitists and his own dog like dirt, heaven help all the rest of us should he even get close to a position of power.
DeleteAMEN!!!!!!!
DeleteThis was excellent.
ReplyDeleteI think Romney is an Ahole....But dang this was like 40 years ago!!! This is the one weakness of the left is that they nick pick every little thing and try to make a big deal about it.
ReplyDeleteIn High school I know most of us have done things we are not proud of but that helped us grow into good people by learning the true meaning of right and wrong.
Repubs are d*cks but the Left needs to grow some balls
The problem with Mitt Romney is that what he did to his high school classmate is symptomatic of everything about him: making money (gobs of it) doing businesses in, thinking that firing people is fun, putting his dog in a crate on top of a car for a twelve-hour trip, and giggling whenever these things are spoken of. He lacks empathy and does not seem to have any concept of personal responsibility. There is something that is seriously off kilter about Mitt Romney and I do not want him in the White House because of it.
DeleteSo what is it the 'left' needs to do? Not "nick pick" (did you mean nit pick?) this situation (ignore it) or "grow some balls" (not ignore it). You're contradicting yourself.
DeleteThe whole point is that Romney (like you, Sarah) doesn't seem to have learned a thing and hasn't grown into that good person. Instead of treating this situation seriously and seizing the opportunity to condemn bullying, he chuckled about it and gave a half-hearted apology. Yes, he is a dick and so are you for your attempt at minimizing Romney's egregious behavior.
Nit pick every little thing, huh? . . . .
DeleteYou mean like President Obama's grades, children, wife, schooling,
his professors, his birth . . . .
I love it when people decide not to see the big picture. This is not just about Romney being a nasty homophobic violent bully at 18 years of age--its about the way he is dealing with the uncovering of it as a sixty something presidential candidate that is important. What did he do first?
He lied. Then he laughed. Then he made a stupid non apology, apology. Old Mitt just doesn't seem very sorry or scarred about this like the four others who participated. Get it? He doesn't seem empathetic about this--- or his dog or poor people or auto workers and their families or the people who used to work at businesses he closed down or the people he says he enjoys firing. . . . .
This is what vetting does. It not only uncovers the past--but it uncovers the moral fiber of the candidate. Mitt is not inspiring confidence. This man could destroy a whole country and never flinch . . . .
The righties are still bloviating about what President Obama was fed for dinner as a 6-year old child. They are also accusing him (falsely, because their facts on this one are completely wrong) about what they CLAIM he was taught in grade school.
DeleteSo YES, planning, instigating, and then heading a conspiracy to commit a criminal felony (assault with a deadly weapon) when you are 18 years old, and then laughing about it now, is totally relevant as a huge window into the character of Mitt Romney. And we now know that this was not an isolated act of assault on his part: he committed a very similar act while at Stanford (instigating a group hazing event that was also a combined assault and battery), which probably explains why he quickly 'transferred out' of Stanford and slipped into BYU.
Romney also threw rocks at his future wife's horse while she was riding bareback and the horse was crossing a railroad track. Had the horse thrown her, she could have received deadly injuries (thrown against the railroad tracks and/or getting crushed under a falling horse), and the horse could have been greatly injured as well. I see dangerous sociopathic tendencies here, and I do not think I am alone in seeing them.
DeleteAMEN, Angela!
DeleteYou nailed it!
Dang it, ha ha ha They crucified people thousands of years ha ha ha ago for "being different", ha ha ha give Romney a break, he's running for office, for gripes sake! ha ha ha!
DeleteFormer Romney Classmate Describes ‘Bullying Supreme’ – A ‘Pack of Dogs’ Who Targeted ‘Different’ Boy
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/former-romney-classmate-describes-bullying-supreme-a-pack-of-dogs-who-targeted-differentboy/
Romney’s former classmate, Phillip Maxwell, now a lawyer, described witnessing the incident and said he considered the “prank” the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery.”
Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing himself and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/sister-of-alleged-romney-target-has-no-knowledge-of-any-bullying-incident/
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/sister-of-alleged-romney-target-has-no-knowledge-of-any-bullying-incident/
Romney Campaign Helped Cultivate Candidate’s Prankster Image
ReplyDeleteBut the campaign’s aggressive effort to showcase the “softer” side of the candidate during his presidential bid has only helped to cement the central anecdote of the more than 3,500-word story, pieced together by the Post. And it has the potential to become as searing as the 2007 Boston Globe story that disclosed how Romney put his family’s dog, Seamus, on the roof of a station wagon on a long drive to Canada.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/romney-campaign-helped-cultivate-prankster-image/
Mitt Gets Worse
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlgitauRAyI&feature=
The GOP convention is going to be interesting.
DeleteSarah likes that Mitt went to "hair school", just like Bristol and Willow.
ReplyDeleteMitt is upset because he forgot to charge the kid for the haircut.
Thanks! That IS a riot!
Deletehttp://mittgetsworse.org/
ReplyDeleteMitt Romney Was The ‘Leader Of The Gang’ That ‘Maliciously’ Hazed Gay Classmate
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bashir-mitt-rommey-was-the-leader-of-the-gang-that-maliciously-hazed-gay-classmate/
But he does not remember it. Everyone else involved with it does, including the victim unfortunately. But not Willard. This pious fake ass GOP thug, can go fuck himself.
DeleteOne 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 “like Lord of the Flies.”
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/romney-friend-stu-white-says-campaign-wants-him-to-counter-prank-accusations/
Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in 1998 said: “While this may seem like an innocent prank to some, it was an act of torment against a child for being different. We expect the people we elect to be leaders in the charge against bullying so that all students are afforded the right to learn and grow in an environment free of fear. This incident calls into question whether Mitt Romney can be an advocate for the nation’s most vulnerable children.”
ReplyDelete“We cannot look past this incident now that Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee for president,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Mitt Romney’s unwillingness to understand or acknowledge the gravity of his actions and sincerely apologize is a troubling suggestion of a lack of character.”
http://www.hrc.org/press-releases/entry/romneys-character-questioned-as-stories-of-anti-gay-bullying-surface-judy-s
http://hrc.org/mittnmatch#.T6wO1rKJpTE
Thanks, Mrs. Shepard's words (the truth) is timeless and clearly shows the empathy Romney cannot and will never have.
DeleteMitt Romney Bullied LGBT Youth Commission As Governor
ReplyDelete...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.
Most memorable for Suffredini and Byard were Romney's battles with a commission meant to help LGBT youth, as it became clearer that these students were targets of harassment and discrimination in schools. The Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth was first set up in 1992 by then-governor William Weld, a Republican. On May 12, 2006, the Boston Globe described what happened:
Angered that his name appeared on a press release touting a gay pride parade, Governor Mitt Romney moved yesterday to curtail the activities of a 14-year-old advisory commission on gay and lesbian youth.
The commission chairwoman, Kathleen M. Henry, said she was called yesterday by Beth Myers, the governor's chief of staff, who told her that the governor planned to issue an executive order ''revoking our existence" and creating another youth commission whose purview would be all of the state's youth, not just gays and lesbians. The commission would have all new members, she said.
Mitt Romney and the New Immorality
ReplyDelete...Holding onto the "m" word is not enough for Romney types; they need to feel superior. Romney's position can be based on no other principle than casting gay people as lesser.
Contrast Romney's positions with Obama's explanation for his support of marriage equality: The president cites as a rationale for marriage equality "the underlying values that we care so deeply about when we describe family, commitment, responsibility, looking after one another ... teaching our kids to be responsible citizens." These values, Obama said, are "the foundation of what made this country great." Who sounds like the moral one here?
Still not sure? The Washington Post just revealed that a young Mitt Romney bullied a schoolmate who may have been perceived as gay. Spotting his bleached-blond hair with a countercultural wave, Romney pinned down the tearful boy and snipped his hair himself, after hollering, "He can't look like that. That's wrong. Just look at him!"
Romney today apologized for "going too far." And no doubt, everyone did stupid, hurtful things in high school, and this was a very different time. But Romney's apology is telling. "I had no idea that this person might have been gay," he insists. "The people involved didn't come out of the closet until years later." That is, he bullied the boy not because he knew him to be gay, but because he looked nonconformist, specifically gender-nonconforming.
In other words, his practice was to police norms for no other reason than to police norms. And here's why that's important: Romney's only stated reason for opposing LGBT equality, and the only reason offered by the entire cohort of social conservatives who have made opposing LGBT equality their cause célèbre, is that heterosexuality is a longstanding norm. As he said in a primary debate, "Three thousand years of human history shouldn't be discarded so quickly." (Tell that to opponents of slavery, stoning, and segregation.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/mitt-romney-and-the-new-i_b_1507112.html?ref=politics&ir=Politics
In light of this story the dog-on-the-car episode takes on new meaning. We know now that Romney is a
ReplyDeletecloseted deviant sociopath and has been for long before he entered politics.
Judy Shepard, whose son was murdered for being gay, blasted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for allegedly harassing prep school classmates he judged to be too effeminate.
ReplyDelete“While this may seem like an innocent prank to some, it was an act of torment against a child for being different,” Shepard said. Her son Matthew was kidnapped and brutally murdered in 1998. “We expect the people we elect to be leaders in the charge against bullying so that all students are afforded the right to learn and grow in an environment free of fear. This incident calls into question whether Mitt Romney can be an advocate for the nation’s most vulnerable children.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/10/mother-of-murdered-gay-son-romneys-prank-was-an-act-of-torment/
Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents
ReplyDelete...“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 teenage 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.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html
Romney Abolished Anti-Bullying Commission As Governor
ReplyDeleteMitt Romney clashed with and eventually abolished a commission created to help LGBT youth.
Mitt Romney clashed with a state commission tasked with helping LGBT youth at risk for bullying and suicide throughout his term as Massachusetts governor over funding and its participation in a pride parade. He eventually abolished the group altogether.
“We remember well what Romney tried to do as governor of Massachusetts and we now we have more info on some of his own attitudes that may have led to his policy actions,” Eliza Byard, executive director of LGBT anti-bullying organization GLSEN, told TPM, drawing a connection with reports that Romney cornered a youth in high school and cut his hair. “If he’s willing to dismiss that incident as ‘hijinks,’ I could understand that he wouldn’t understand at all why this program was so critical.”
http://www.alan.com/2012/05/10/romney-abolished-anti-bullying-commission-as-governor/
As always Margaret says it like it is. Pass this along - please.
ReplyDeletehttp://margaretandhelen.com/2012/05/11/mitt-happens/
A Desperate Mitt Romney Claims Obama Planted Gay Bullying Story
ReplyDelete...Romney was asked by Fox News host Neil Cavuto if the he thought the Obama campaign planted the bullying story, and he answered, “Well, I think you’re going to find, throughout this campaign season, that the president’s team will be doing everything in their power to try and hold up very shiny objects many of them will be with regards to me…”
According to Romney, this was all an evil Obama plot to distract the American people, but the facts don’t support his claims. While political folks and conspiracy theorists alike are speculating that Obama’s announced support for same sex marriage was choreographed, the reality is that Vice President Biden’s comments got the president to make his announcement a little ahead of schedule. CNN reported that Obama wasn’t supposed to make his support publicly known until his appearance next week on The View.
If this was a diabolical setup, the Obama campaign managed to set up an unscheduled network news interview, have the Washington Post get the entire story including background research and interviews with Romney associates in about 48 hours, and have the finished story appear the morning paper after the unscheduled interview ran.
This was no plot by Obama.
...The last two days have revealed the character of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Obama stood up for what is right, while Romney has made excuses and denied responsibility for his wrongs. One of these men has the character of a president, and the other held a boy down who he suspected to be gay and cut his hair.
One man is currently responsible for leading our country. The other a wanna be president who can’t even take responsibility for his own actions.
http://www.politicususa.com/a-desperate-mitt-romney-claims-obama-planted-gay-bullying-story.html
Ed is sometimes too strident. Not this time though.
ReplyDeleteUncomfortably Numb: Mitt Romney Has No Idea How You Feel
ReplyDeleteWere you to slam your head into a dead tree trunk for hours on end, that tree trunk would have a vastly more dramatic reaction to your suffering than corporate prince and right-wing presidential nominee Mitt Romney. A professional corporate plunderer whose political career has previously hovered just inches outside of the national spotlight, never before has Mitt Romney’s boardroom detachment been so obvious. Surely there have been other cold, out-of-touch millionaires who have applied themselves to winning national office, but the others could at least fake a little humanity–even pretend to a “compassionate conservatism.” Mitt Romney couldn’t be more out of touch with America if he lived in Pyongyang.
...Come November, Romney will for once have to sit and be judged by millions of average folks, instead of the other way around. It’s an almost karmic moment of irony that a child of such unearned privilege seeks to sweet-talk the vote from so many who have had to earn for themselves. At least for a moment in our democracy, us double-jobbers, over-time chasers, working parents, citizen intelligentsia, abandoned youth, colonized urban communities, lip-serviced veterans and economic untouchables–we’ll get to express our opinion on this millionaire. Each person’s vote is their own, but if you give a damn about your condition, you need to realize that Mitt Romney does not.
http://www.politicususa.com/uncomfortably-numb-mitt-romney-has-no-idea-how-you-feel.html
Consider this, everyone: the thing the righties like LEAST about Romney is that he is not angry enough. Seriously. They see him as INSUFFICIENT in the bullying department. That's why they went for people like Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and especially Rick Santorum, in droves.
DeleteMitt Romney, the Vicious Bully Who Never Grew Up
ReplyDelete...I see the shield of privilege being held up once again, with a how dare you bring up high school attitude. Yes, high school was a long time ago and yes, we all did stupid things in high school. And yet, most of us never bullied other students.
I’m afraid that Mitt Romney today is the same Mitt Romney who held that door shut and held a student down. What I see is a person who preys upon the vulnerable. He did it in high school, to such a degree that the others involved in the incident are still troubled by it today.
The young man who held a door shut so a sight-impaired teacher would walk into it later, as an adult, put his pet on the roof of his car and ignored the dog’s brown streams of terror. With the same aloof sense of privilege, Romney shut down businesses and factories, killing jobs for the vulnerable. Sometimes in business tough decisions are called for, but it’s a different matter all together when the vulnerable are preyed upon, not even considered, and worse yet, mocked for being who and what they are.
Romney’s petulant “apology” (“I’m sorry if anyone is offended” is not a genuine apology replete with the appropriate self-examination) is not enough for someone who is running to be the leader of the free world. America is supposed to be a place where all people are equal, not a place where we excuse our leaders of moral responsibility and honor due to their privilege. Where is the honor in Romney’s apology? There is none. There is no recognition of the pain he caused, no recognition of how his actions impacted other human beings.
I certainly don’t wish to return to the vicious world of prep school, but if Mitt Romney is elected, we might just be headed back to the moral equivalent of it, sans the honor code. This isn’t about ideology, it’s about the soul and integrity of America, and I find Mitt Romney sorely lacking in both.
http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-romney-the-vicious-bully-who-never-grew-up.html
Remember: he bullied a disabled professor, someone of a higher rank than him (as a student) because, wait for it: he was the governor's son, and knew he could get away with it. The professor, probably scared witless (because he could NOT SEE), had to 'go', because he was different, weak, deficient. THIS IS NAZI ideology, per se.
DeleteWhat a devastating story. I remember every mean thing I ever did as a teenager – whether to my brother or friends – and feel guilt still tehse years later. Romney’s scramble here is telling, pathetic and alarming. This was a major step above a hurled epithet. And it doesn’t sound like it was isolated. I am not sure what he can do to address this story(ies), but finding character witnesses isn’t it.
ReplyDeleteI know for a fact that every single person ever bullied (tens of millions of us) won’t forget this story. We know the Mitt Romneys of our past. We may have gotten over it, but we haven’t forgotten, and one thing we would never forgive is a lack of remorse. Bullies can reform – but if they do, they learn the word “sorry” along the way. This one has not. He is, simply, a worm underserving of the presidency or the success earned in his life.
10,000 bucks Romney will NOT be elected! The guy is a total jerk - proven liar (lies and lies!) and now his classmates talk about his being a bully in high school.
DeleteHe is a typical rich kid that wasn't made to have accountability for his bad actions - which has continued on into his adulthood.
The guy is a jerk!
Romney is absolutely disgusting. Just another silver spoon, entitled a**hole who thinks he can get away with anything because his family is rich and powerful. What a jerk. He won’t man up and admit to making an immoral mistake during high school, probably because he doesn’t view bullying a gay kid as an immoral act. A very cowardly and disturbing type of guy. Not surprising from an uber-greedy Wall Street psychopath.
ReplyDeleteNot surprisingly people are defending this guy. Apparently Romney assaulting and bullying perceived gay students in high school isn’t newsworthy because it was so long ago, but what Obama had on his dinner plate when he was 9 years old is. It’s very telling that no one that Romney went to school with seems to be willing to come to his defense, or even really has anything all that good to say about him outside of his wife. And of course his defenders are going to attack the media, and the Washington Post of all news outlets. Which tends to lean to the right anyway. Anything that paints Republicans/conservatives in a bad light HAS to be media bias right? Are you people even grounded in reality?
ReplyDeleteIt’s funny how while Obama announces his support for gay marriage to the elation of Americans across the nation, Mitt Romney simultaneously denounces Obama’s stance while having to defend himself for assaulting and bullying fellow students he thought were gay in high school.
BUT BUT BUT OBAMA DID DRUGS! Yea which he outright admitted in his own autobiographies. He didn’t get accused of doing drugs and then claim he “didn’t remember what happened” and give some weak apology while scouring his yearbook looking for people to say nice things about him (and subsequently not being able to find any).
You conservatives might be fooling yourselves, but you’re not fooling anyone else.
A punk is a punk is a punk. Only this one had a silver spoon up his a** and no accountability.
ReplyDeleteRomney was 18 years old. Old enough to be drafted into the US Army, to serve in Vietnam. And what was he doing? Organizing and leading a gang assault on a fellow student.
Can you imagine how right wing media would react if it had corroborated information that an 18 year old Obama had organized and led a gang assault against a younger fellow student?
All these people complaining that Obama did some bad things in high school so why is what Romney did any more relevant are totally missing the point. It’s not so much what Romney did (though I think it’s deplorable) it’s that he isn’t owning up to it. The “I don’t remember” is telling. If the story was an out and out lie a normal response would be to deny it every happened (because, assumedly it didn’t). In fact if someone made a horrible accusation like this against me and it wasn’t true I’d be outraged. I certainly wouldn’t say “I don’t recall that incident”. Obama has admitted to, in fact wrote about, all the things he did in high school that he’s not proud of. Romney is lying. That’s the material point, not what the action but the reaction.
ReplyDeleteObama's actions (1) were purposefully disclosed, owned up to AND sincerely apologized for in his book, not "uncovered" by investigation/vetting (2) occurred when he was in ELEMENTARY school.
DeleteHUGE difference.
Plus, 8:28 - President Obama didn't do anything nearly as bad as what Romney's five high school classmates said he did! Romeny is a proven bully and liar!!! President Obama is NOT!
DeleteMan I really hate it when politicians lie so transparently. If Romney really doesn’t remember the incident and lots of his classmates do, either his other actions were much worse or he did these kinds of things so frequently that they became a blur. Either way his reaction is shows no remorse for his inappropriate actions. A very bad sign in a leader.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama's view on same-sex marriage has evolved. Romney doesn't believe in evolution.
ReplyDeleteMitt Romney lacks a sensitivity gene
ReplyDeleteTrue, but all of Romney’s actions make up the whole of his character. And in this case, whether he did it or didn’t do it or can’t remember, he should be, today, nothing less than mortified at the idea of anyone doing what his former classmates told the Washington Post he did.
But sensitivity is not Romney’s strong suit. This is the man who, as a Mormon lay leader, according to a New York Times report, showed up at a hospital once to confront and warn a woman against having an abortion -- which her doctors had advised her to undergo -- when she was being treated for a dangerous blood clot. And this is the same guy who tied his dog in a crate on the roof of the car for hourslong family road trips years ago. Even there, he couldn’t muster any regret. Asked by ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer if he would transport his dog like that again, he chuckled and said, “Certainly not now with the all the attention it’s received.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-romney-and-pranks-20120510,0,918743.story
Like the first commenter (anon 4:31) says, for the sake of argument, let's leave these cruel acts of the past out of it, and even give Mitt a break for not remembering (even though Romney's classmates who participated remember it clearly and in detail -- consistent detail).
ReplyDeleteLet's just focus on Romney's "IF this hurt anyone's feelings" non-apology, with guffaws and chuckles. Like a drunk driver saying to someone he hit and injured (with 5 witnesses): "I don't remember the accident, but I don't deny it, and IF it hurt you, then I'm sorry."
Like alleged pedophile Jerry Sandusky: "IF my actions hurt anyone, . . ."
Throw the bums out.
How Mitt responds to questions of his past cruelty is very telling and relevant.
DeleteSo Mitt acts like an ass in high school. A bully even. But then he gets every opportunity (silver spoon) to build himself an empire. Along the way he decides he needs to run for public office. Unfortunately, it never occurs to him to reach back and personally apologize to those people he bullied back in the day. Nor to those fellows he led in these misadventures. Surely he's been aware through the years that his old friends had problems with their own part in these events.
ReplyDeleteDoes this candidate not have advisers? Do none of them think the prudent, civil thing to do is to apologize, show some remorse? This is a man who is a "higher-up" in his church? A man of god? These things never cease to amaze me. Mitt is making it harder and harder for his defenders to shrug their shoulders and proclaim his innocence.
Keep up the good work Mitt. I can't believe you're the best your party had to offer the country, now or ever.
Mitt Romney is cruel to family pets, he heartlessly drains healthy companies of assets/cash/pensions and thinks holding someone down to cut their hair is "hijinks." Wow.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't seem to care about people who are different or who are strangers. Nor does he think much of animals. (Is he buddies with Fred Malek too?)
The heartwarming story of Mitt shutting down the Boston office of Bain for a day so that everyone could go to NYC to find the runaway teen of one of his colleagues tells me ONLY that he'd help out one of his RICH FRIENDS. Everyone else can piss off.
I bet he'd fit the same profile as a serial killer.
That's not so surprising. After all, the runaway was with her black boyfriend. See it now?
DeleteWRONG! Without focusing on both the incident and the non-apology, you miss half the story. Shove it ALL under a microscope, I say. If it is good enough for Obama having the media and the right wing analyze his every move it is good enough for the GOP presumptive nominee to have every incident he has done investigated thoroughly. If he can't take it, get the fuck out of the race. Period.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you. President Obama has been given horrid press/media for whatever he does or doesn't do! He has not been given credit for a damned thing and he is doing one hell of a job as our President in spite of all the obstruction!
DeleteIf the media/press is going to treat him that way, Romney deserves and should expect the exact same treatment!
Problem w/Romney is that he is a proven liar time and time again!
Five of The Mitt’s classmates remember the event in consistent detail. The Mitt claims not to remember it. WC thinks that’s unlikely. Either The Mitt attacked potentially gay men so often that the incidents were not memorable, or he is lying. Take your choice.
ReplyDeleteThe Mitt’s campaign committee has downplayed the incident, pointing out it was a long time ago, that it was just a prep school prank and that “the stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.” That’s not responsive. And it fails to answer the questions the incident raises.
Is The Mitt a homophobe? Is The Mitt a bully? The Mitt’s campaign wouldn’t let the Post interview The Mitt himself, so at this point the uncontroverted evidence is “Possibly” to the first question and “Certainly” to the second. And likely a liar as well.
http://wickershamsconscience.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/mitts-muffs-the-high-school-bully-lies/
The pattern is starting to come together. He is authoritarian to the extreme and has no empathy for those less advantaged. The hair attack shows that he is a coward as he had to work up to this and assemble backup before taking action. His sense of humor is at other people's expense. The teacher story is also horrible and I think he knew he wouldn't be held accountable as the teacher showed a pattern of not defending himself. I think if other classmates come forward and say what a marvelous chap Mitt was, Americans will see through that. Mitt was what my kids called a "top dog"--popular leader and I'm pretty sure the others in his posse were also. This is not ordinary hijinks or whatever he wants to call it. It is the tyranny of the powerful over the weak.
ReplyDeleteRomney: A Gay-Basher In High School
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me most about this story is Romney's intense equivocation. First he didn't remember the incidents. Then he apologized to anyone who was offended but without saying he remembered anything specific. Then he said that he definitely didn't know or think the kid they attacked was gay, even though he apparently didn't remember the attack. None of that really adds up.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/romney-a-gay-basher-in-high-school-ctd-1.html
Well Mitt certainly remembers the abuse victim, they were both boarding students at a small very exclusive prep school.
DeleteThat is why his failure to remember what he did to his fellow student (that he remembers he didn't think was gay) is so noteworthy. Mitt is not "not remembering" cutting the hair of a random victim. Mitt is "not remembering" the forced cutting of a fellow student with whom he lived with 5 days a week. (Mitt usually spent the weekends in Flint (ha ha) I mean Lansing. That is where Mitt's daddy the Governor lived.)
"Scour Romney’s record for a single example of real political courage -- a single, solitary instance, however small, where Romney placed principle or substance above his own short- term political interests. Let me know if you find one ... His campaign has been an exercise in feeble appeasement. The only thing he appears to be dedicated to is abasing himself to the hard-right wing of the Republican Party. Consider the way he allowed a foreign-policy spokesman to be drummed out of the campaign simply for being gay ... Romney flunks the character test. He seems incapable of making the hard, sometimes unpopular, choices that are part of the job," - Gerald Rafshoon, former spokesman for president Carter.
ReplyDeleteLOL. I bet Sarah Palin thinks this is the crack in the door she's been waiting for. We already know she's got a reservation to park herself in a location near the RNC and is prolly praying for her peeps to deliver a brokered convention.
ReplyDeleteShe'll have to arm wrestle the Ron Paul delegates first!
She'll get no where! She, Todd and Bristol are the laughing stock of the United States!
DeleteOne only needs to go back and read up on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to get a better understanding of how the art of lying, is baked into Willard's soul.
ReplyDeleteYes, Willard is a pathological LIAR. He is the perfect GOP puppet.
DeleteBarack Obama Teaches Mitt Romney How Humans React When They Do Something Wrong
ReplyDelete...Then, there’s the tried-and-true tit-for-tat strategy, in which Hannity and others dredge up a superficially similar incident, and try to call it even. In this case, it’s another passage from Barack Obama’s 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Here’s the part the right-wingers are using:
“I’m not her boyfriend!” I shouted. I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked upat me, but still said nothing. “Leave me alone!” I shouted again. And suddenly Coretta was running, faster and faster,until she disappeared from sight. Appreciative laughs rose around me. Then the bell rang, and the teachers appeared to round us back into class.
It was a moment of weakness, to be sure, in which a ten year-old Barack Obama, surrounded by other children who were taunting him and Coretta, succumbed to peer pressure. Here’s how he wound up in that situation:
'There was one other child in my class, though, who reminded me of a different sort of pain. Her name was Coretta,and before my arrival she had been the only black person in our grade. She was plump and dark and didn’t seem tohave many friends. From the first day, we avoided each other but watched from a distance, as if direct contact wouldonly remind us more keenly of our isolation.
Finally, during recess one hot, cloudless day, we found ourselves occupying the same corner of the playground. Idon’t remember what we said to each other, but I remember that suddenly she was chasing me around the jungle gymsand swings. She was laughing brightly, and I teased her and dodged this way and that, until she finally caught me and we fell to the ground breathless.
When I looked up, I saw a group of children, faceless before the glare of the sun, pointing down at us.
“Coretta has a boyfriend! Coretta has a boyfriend!”
The chants grew louder as a few more kids circled us.“She’s not my g-girlfriend,” I stammered. I looked to Coretta for some assistance, but she just stood there looking down at the ground.
“Coretta’s got a boyfriend! Why don’t you kiss her, mister boyfriend?”
What Hannity, et al, fail to disclose is what Obama wrote immediately following the excerpt they’re flogging:
'For the rest of the afternoon, I was haunted by the look on Coretta’s face just before she had started to run: her disappointment, and the accusation. I wanted to explain to her somehow that it had been nothing personal; I’d just never had a girlfriend before and saw no particular need to have one now. But I didn’t even know if that was true. I knew only that it was too late for explanations, that somehow I’d been tested and found wanting; and whenever I snuck a glance at Coretta’s desk, I would see her with her head bent over her work, appearing as if nothing had happened, pulled into herself and asking no favors.
My act of betrayal bought me some room from the other children, and like Coretta, I was mostly left alone.'
READ MORE:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/barack-obama-teaches-mitt-romney-how-humans-react-when-they-do-something-wrong/
Reading through the comments, it's clear that rational, compassionate people capable of empathy are able to see through the veil of lies this shell of a man hides behind. The running with scissors, leader of the pack thing would be an event that's hard to forget.
ReplyDeleteI'm no angel, I've flied off the handle, said and did things I'm ashamed of, but I had it in my heart to ask forgiveness as close as possible to the incident. The victim is dead, and probably the blind professor he led into a closed door, and one can't ask forgiveness from the dead.
The least he can do is man up, admit his wrongdoings, and his inability and fake humor calling them "hijinks" isn't doing anything.
The GOP convention will be very telling, he's dug himself into a hole he can't get out of, and this story won't go away soon.