Romney apologizes for commiting hate crime on gay man

[cheguevara]

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/politi...KFU_story.html

[cheguevara]

isn't there a movie of this somewhere?

[Wild Cobra]

When the entire democrat party of Romney's age and older apologizes for the same thing, I might take note if Romney didn't.

It was the fashionable thing to dislike blacks in the early 60's. Doesn't make it right, but times change.

[cheguevara]

here we go. School Ties. Romney is this guy:

[cheguevara]

Charlie Dillon: You know something? I'm still gonna get into Harvard. And in 10 years no one will remember any of this. But you'll still be a goddamn Jew.
David Green: And you'll still be a prick.

[boutons_deux]

The Southern Dem racists (the south being heavily Democratic since the Civil War) got conscripted into racist Repug party after the 60s legislation, aka, Nixon/Repug "Southern Strategy".

[Wild Cobra]

The Southern Dem racists (the south being heavily Democratic since the Civil War) got conscripted into racist Repug party after the 60s legislation, aka, Nixon/Repug "Southern Strategy".

LOL...

Where can I buy one of these revisionist history books?

[boutons_deux]

gfy

[TeyshaBlue]

High School Senior misbehaves. Yeah, that's thread worthy.

[ChumpDumper]

It's not like he ate a dog or anything. That would be important.

[Winehole23]

Times have changed. Hazing and stuff like this are now considered criminal activities. In another day, they were "part of the experience."

Romney showed firm, manly leadership at a young age, in the face of an perverse and/or unruly male hairdo, but he's right to acknowledge times have changed, that bullying is bad, and apologize, sort of, for hazing Lauber.

[Winehole23]

snap take: both the hazing revelation and Romney's (fairly) swift apology for it, tend to humanize him.

[George Gervin's Afro]

It's not like he ate a dog or anything. That would be important.

or studied at madrassa when he was 6 years old.....

[ChumpDumper]

His conditional non-apology is awesome though.

[DarrinS]

Fake outrage alert. At least it's a distraction from the real issues.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Fake outrage alert. At least it's a distraction from the real issues.

irony alert..

[cheguevara]

sorry but this could be a game changer.

as the saying goes. once a prick, always a prick.

I agree probably 99% of our presidents were pricks, but few of them have such vivid prick-like memories told by 3rd parties and made public.

[Winehole23]

people will like him better for it. next...

[ChumpDumper]

Fake outrage alert. At least it's a distraction from the real issues.

Certainly no outrage at all on my part. His reaction is pretty illuminating though.

[Winehole23]

“The stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.” Thursday morning, as it became clear that this was no kind of answer—that the Post had this story down, with the accounts of the witnesses, who were members of both parties and had grown into a range of professions—Romney offered a blanket apology for anything that might have slipped his mind:

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 high jinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz1uUeVEj2I

[ChumpDumper]

sorry but this could be a game changer.

as the saying goes. once a prick, always a prick.

I agree probably 99% of our presidents were pricks, but few of them have such vivid prick-like memories told by 3rd parties and made public.

It's not like he had virulently racist newsletters circulated under his name.

That's the kind of thing that would prevent someone from ever becoming president.

[George Gervin's Afro]

It's not like he had virulently racist newsletters circulated under his name.

That's the kind of thing that would prevent someone from ever becoming president.

of course we would have to assume that he never actually read the newsletter

[cheguevara]

a hate crime is much worse than a newsletter. next.

[Wild Cobra]

sorry but this could be a game changer.

Really?

There are far more important things that people worry about than being cool with his buddies almost 50 years ago.

I really wonder what type of dirt the republicans could find on Obama if they went out of their way looking for it like democrats look for dirt on republicans.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Really?

There are far more important things that people worry about than being cool with his buddies almost 50 years ago.

I really wonder what type of dirt the republicans could find on Obama if they went out of their way looking for it like democrats look for dirt on republicans.

Sincerely,

sherriff joe who just had his cold case squad investigating Obam's birth certificate.. no the right wing haven't been digging through the president's past...

[boutons_deux]

High School Senior misbehaves. Yeah, that's thread worthy.

Yep, all HS senior are bullies, and they all hold down a classmate to cut off his hair or commit similar brutalities. yawn

[Wild Cobra]

Sincerely,

sherriff joe who just had his cold case squad investigating Obam's birth certificate.. no the right wing haven't been digging through the president's past...

He took something that was already out there and a valid concern.

Has anyone gone to Indonesia, and interviewed all the kids Obama went to school with over there? Could you imagine the stories these kids might remember?

[ChumpDumper]

He took something that was already out there and a valid concern.

Has anyone gone to Indonesia, and interviewed all the kids Obama went to school with over there? Could you imagine the stories these kids might remember?

What stories do you imagine they might remember?

[George Gervin's Afro]

He took something that was already out there and a valid concern.

Has anyone gone to Indonesia, and interviewed all the kids Obama went to school with over there? Could you imagine the stories these kids might remember?

not many people find it to be a valid concern..it's only a concern to those people who still can't accept that he won the Presidency.. NO ONE ELSE CARES

[TeyshaBlue]

He took something that was already out there and a valid concern.

Has anyone gone to Indonesia, and interviewed all the kids Obama went to school with over there? Could you imagine the stories these kids might remember?

It would be every bit as irrelevant.