Much has been made for the past day or two over a hazing incident at Mitt Romney’s prep school,  Cranbrook School.  Accounts of the incident were taken from several witnesses, independently, and all described a case of Romney targeting an effeminate classmate with bleached blond hair that fell over one eye.  According to the witnesses, Romney jumped the boy, sheers in hand, and gave him a haircut.  The kid was terrified and screamed for help.  One the surface, it doesn’t sound all that bad….but was it?

Washington Post:

 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 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. 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 identified. 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.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”

The WaPo’s version sounds far more serious than my version, doesn’t it.  Was that intentional?  I am not ready to label  someone a bully for something he or she  did nearly 50 years ago.  Let’s look at his age at the time:  He was a young man.  Plenty of young men do things like that.  So do young women, although it is rarer.  Kids can be mean.  Damn mean.  Kids also go for the weakest in the pack and they have a nose and a flair for sniffing the weakest out. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I do not approve of what Romney did–not in the least.  I despise hazing and bullying.  I would have thrown him out of school for the incident.  Yet, I am not willing to label him a bully.  Real bullies have a history of bullying behavior.  It doesn’t go away.  Bullies are repeat offenders.  They pick on the weak, they pick on family members.  The bullying can show up with animals, older parents, children. 

What does bother me is the fact that Mr. Romney says he can’t remember the incident.  I did a few bad things to people and I sure remember them and have a guilty conscience.  That includes things I laughed at and didn’t try to stop.  I bet he remembers and is just embarrassed to talk about it.  If that is the case, and he doesn’t have a history of bullying, then I think we forgive, forget, and move on.  It also a good story to tell our kids.  You know the one that we tell them about never knowing when something they do wrong will come back to bite them in the butt? 

Do you think Romney is a bully?  Is it fair to label someone for things they did as a child?  As a teenager?

29 Thoughts to “Is Romney a Bully?”

  1. SlowpokeRodriguez

    It’s pretty clear that Obama did bully that girl Coretta back in his school days. It’s a shame if you ask me.

  2. Starryflights

    Yeah, Romney was a little punk deliquent. Getting in a fight is one thing, but leading a gang of miscreants to beat up on one guy is chicken-stuff cowardly. On top of that, he lies, saying he doesn’t remember it, when the other people invovled do remember.

    We should not elect a liar and a coward as president. Cowardly liars aren’t fit for public office.

  3. Starryflights

    7 hours ago

    Romney’s former classmate: ‘You have to take it into account’
    Posted by
    CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta
    Washington (CNN) – Phillip Maxwell wishes he had done something to stop it.

    Maxwell, a Michigan attorney, is still haunted by what he claims he witnessed on the campus of the state’s elite Cranbrook School in 1965: a young Mitt Romney and a group of friends holding down a classmate named John Lauber and cutting off chunks of his long hair.

    “It was not an event you take a lot of pride in. And it was that way for all of us,” Maxwell told CNN.

    Maxwell confirmed the story, first reported in the Washington Post. However, he insisted the incident was far worse than a high school prank.

    “I’m a lawyer. I know what an assault is. This kid was scared. He was terrified. That’s an assault,” Maxwell said.

    Romney said in an interview with Fox News Radio he does not recall the incident described in the Post article. But the former Massachusetts governor acknowledged he engaged in pranks that “might have gone too far” and apologized for any harm done during his time at Cranbrook.

    “Back in high school, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney said.

    Maxwell told CNN he is disappointed in Romney’s response to the story.

    “He says he doesn’t remember it and I find it difficult to believe,” Maxwell said in a telephone interview.

    “It’s unfortunate that Mitt simply hasn’t owned up to his behavior,” he added.

    Maxwell, who told ABC News he is a registered independent who has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, said the episode is “relevant” in the campaign as a window into Romney’s character.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/10/romneys-former-classmate-you-have-to-take-it-into-account/?hpt=hp_t2

    Yep. Character counts.

  4. Pat Herve

    He was young and stupid – he may not have realized how much of a bully he was being – he was probably the popular guy that could get people around him to do any thing for him. It is the fact that he does not remember the incident at all, even after being reminded about it. Man up, admit you did it, say it was wrong. I find it hard to believe one would forget an incident like this (it festered over some time) – Mitt says, I do not remember, what, it happened like 48 years ago – not a good excuse.

  5. Emma

    I am truly amazed that the WaPo came up with 11 pages of highly detailed eyewitness accounts and VERBATIM quotes from events that happened on a single day nearly 50 years ago. Yet there is not one shred of writing to be found from Obama’s time as president of the Harvard Law Review. Nothing. No transcripts, no papers, no nothing. I’m no fan of Romney and have no intention of voting for him, but this is a hit piece, perfectly timed to dovetail with Obama’s “evolution” and his $40,000-a-plate Hollywood fundraising dinner.

  6. @Pat, that is what bothers me too. Teenage boys do lots of stupid things–most of them outgrow it. (operative word: most) Surely he remembers. Not remembering something like that doesn’t speak well of his character. I would remember that.

    Not to pick on boys, girls do too.

  7. Morris Davis

    Interesting how what Romney did is referred to as a “prank.” For a lot of Non-Romney’s it ends up being called “assault and battery.” A group of Amish men are (or were) getting prosecuted for holding men down and cutting off their beards … bunch of pranksters. Some want to write it off as Romney being “young and stupid” because he was just 18. They are generally the same people that gave Obama a load of grief for eating dog when he was 6.

  8. Apparently the WAPO wrote a hit piece and now it’s backfiring.
    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/10/Washington-Post-Hit-Piece-Implodes

    And we gave Obama a ration only because his team was making such a big deal about Romney’s dog on the roof thing from the 1980’s, as if it was a big deal. Hypocrisy should always be mocked. That, and the jokes were funny.

    I’m still waiting on the WAPO to dig up ANYTHING about Obama’s past. His grades, his writings, his lesson plans, his fake girl friends.. sorry, composite, his ghost writers, his associations with terrorists, his scandals, etc…….

    but its important that we read about Romney acting like a jerk in high school…..

  9. SlowpokeRodriguez

    It is pretty clear that for Obama, the war on women started very early for him, shoving little girls on the playground…What a vile misogynist!

  10. SlowpokeRodriguez

    I suppose after the McDonnell Master’s Thesis hit piece, the “Romney gave somebody a wedgie in high school” shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is what passes as journalism today, boys and girls….and we got a looong way to go until November!

  11. @Cargosquid

    I think there will be a story a week between now and the election, on both of them.

    I would do anything to get away from what either one of them think about gay marriage. Talk about beating something to death. geez.

    I still want to hear about Selma. Lots of things have happened to Selma. When did that happen? 1963? Obama’s parent didn’t just race out and do the deed. They didn’t even know each other than. 🙄

  12. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Breaking News!!! We found an online video of Romney’s victim!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

    Looks like this incident really took its toll.

    1. That might be funny if the guy were alive to defend himself. His family has already released a statement disavowing the way he has been characterized.

  13. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Make no mistake….it’s still funny!

  14. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Moderation…..for that?? Really???

  15. Starryflights

    Mitt Romney is a liar and a coward. No wonder right wingers support him.

    1. I think that is a little harsh. Why do you say he is a coward? I am not so sure anyone who runs for president is a coward.

  16. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Moon-howler :I think that is a little harsh. Why do you say he is a coward? I am not so sure anyone who runs for president is a coward.

    Why does it matter? Typical “let the diarrhea fly” from Starry.

  17. Emma

    It’s appalling to me that there seemed to be no regard for the alleged victim’s family members, who had absolutely no knowledge of this incident, who don’t seem to believe it even happened, and who are angry that he is being used for political purposes. It’s embarrassing and demeaning to the deceased, whether it’s true or not. Did they really have to name him?

  18. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Never mind the 16 trillion in debt, folks! Look over here! Romney gave some kid a “purple nurple! Don’t look at all those people out of work! Hey, Look what Romney did to this dog!

  19. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Breaking News! Romney crapped his diaper in nursery school!

    1. You certainly are scatological today, Slow.

  20. punchak

    And you wonder why we don’t get the really good, terrific people to run for office,
    ANY office!

  21. SlowpokeRodriguez

    Moon-howler :
    You certainly are scatological today, Slow.

    So is the WashPo story.

  22. @Moon-howler
    They knew each other BEFORE Selma. Obama was born in 1961. THAT’s why his story linking Selma to his parents relationship is a lie.

    1. Start over. Where does this story appear? I have confused myself at this point.

      I am not sure what Selma has to do with Obama. I stand corrected on the birth year. Brain freeze. but damn, I got the right country!

  23. On Glenn Beck, Obama’s quotes were being used to point out his contradictions about his own personal history.

    Barack Obama addressed a group in Selma, AL commemorating the 1965 voting rights march. He credited the event with giving his parents the idea that they could have a child. The only problem is he was born in 1961.

    “What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation…This young man named Barack Obama…came over to this country. He met this woman…(who) had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided…it might…be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama… So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama. I’m here because somebody marched.”

    This is just one of the instances where his quotes illustrate the fact that he will say anything to a group to get elected, without fear of being corrected.

    1. Thanks for providing the quote. I didn’t read it as you did. I see it as the same spirit that caused Selma caused him to exist. Perhaps its my age.

      If my other choice for prez was Mitt Romney, I would just not get into a pissing contest over who was taking poetic license with details. They are both politiicans and have been know to vary with facts.

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