Breaking: Romney apologizes for high-school pranks

Hotair ^ | 05/10/2012 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Thankfully, our long national nightmare is over:

Mitt Romney apologized on Thursday morning for pranks he helped orchestrate in high school that he said “might have gone too far,” including an incident in which he pinned down a fellow student and cut his hair.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was responding to an article published a few hours earlier by The Washington Post documenting the episode with first-hand accounts from Romney’s classmates.

“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 in a live radio interview with Fox News Channel personality Brian Kilmeade. Romney added: “I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some might have gone too far and for that, I apologize.”

Romney’s campaign hastily scheduled the radio interview for the candidate to call in from Omaha, where he is holding a campaign event later Wednesday, to respond to The Post’s report.

Politically speaking, this was the smart thing to do. Other campaigns would have tried challenging the veracity of the stories and/or the motives of the witnesses, but that’s a losing proposition. The more a campaign debates those points, the longer the story goes, and the more legitimacy it has in the media. Instead, the Romney campaign made it an old story before it began to grow legs by just expressing remorse over any cruelty that may have taken place in high school.

I eagerly await the next set of stories about how in middle school Romney refused to give cuts in line to kids from low-income families, or how he shamelessly violated the “exies-no-erasies” rule in elementary school with his female classmates.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: This story has to be one of the more idiotic ones I’ve seen during a presidential campaign.

This is the WaPo’s attempt to make Romney look like an intolerant bullying bigot and it is all related to the NC Gay marriage amendment ban and Obama’s own coming out announcement.

Jason Horowitz of the WaPo detailed episodes in which Romney bullied high school classmates, including two who later revealed they were gay.

ALL IN THE PLAN TO HELP RE-ELECT OBAMA FOLKS.

[skinkinthegrass]

...just another White Hut "wag the dog" operation.
it's the economy, stupid!

[marstegreg]

Once a Bully Always a Bully.

GOOD!!!!! I would so much rather have a bully running this country than an apologetic wimp! This should work to Romney’s advantage. Who would you rather have dealing with Putin (who just so happens to be a bully) Romney or Wimpy?

[dfwgator]

And by apologizing Mitt is helping them. Geez, is this guy tone deaf, or what?

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Exactly. He should have ignored it. This is the kind of crap that always tends to divert campaigns off the serious issues.

[dfwgator]

I’ve come to the realization that while I may have no choice but to vote for him, Mitt is the worst candidate, ever.

[bigbob]

Me neither..even if the statue of limitations has run out!

[Carry_Okie]

OMG, Romney was BULLYING!!!

/latest Marxist cause celebre

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

To: Diogenesis

Your posts are the most pathetic I've seen here the past few years.

Obama thanks you

Now, now, don't be so hard on Diogenesis. After all, he/she/it has a hard enough job regurgitating those talking points and marching orders he gets daily from Axelrod and Media Matters in an effort to get their guy re-elected; all the while toking up and downing copious amounts of Moonbat Kool Aid.

Barry Hussein Obama: Mmm, mmm, mmm!

[drpix]

The story would not have hurt him anywhere near as much as his limp wrist response. (Just as did McCain's 2008 no-offense rollover campaign.)

[kevcol]

Apologize for his youth?!

Just like Obama apologized for being mentored by a Communist Party member and pedophile author (Frank Marshall Davis) who as an adult, he later praised in his autobiography?

And the (McCain) GOP 2008 Rollover for the MSM Redux begins!

Exactly.
Obamao will apologize for nothing - no surprises there, none at all. MSM will not delve into
Obamao's Marxist/Drug-addled/homo/muslim past - no surprises there, none at all.
Willard will have everything from his past surface in the worst possible light and his religion defined as something aking to Scientology^2 (its already begun) - no surprises there, none at all.

No surprises here, most of us knew this was going to happen - most of us knew Willard was the worst candidate possible, and if you are outraged that Obamao will not receive the same treatment, you must have slept through 2008.

[GOPsterinMA]

Like I keep saying, Obama’s done.

If this is the best they can pull out, how pathetic.

What about Mr. KKK, “Sheets” Byrd? Or Mr. “Nazis are cool” Joe Kennedy Sr.?

Silly me, they were RATS...the rules need not apply to them.

[Vigilanteman]

Somebody did a ton of research here. It would be nice if the Washington ComPost could ever do a similar length article on ObaMao's years at a preppy elite high school in Honolulu or Asia Pacific University in California or Columbia.

Do you suppose they could even locate this many classmates, dead or alive, even if they wanted to do so?

FWIW, an military buddy of mine grew up on the Wind River Reservation near Riverton, Wyoming. A popular sport for male bonding of the local cowboys and Indians was to go into town on a Saturday night, lasso longhairs and give them the sheep sheer treatment. Sometimes it was fueled by alcohol, sometimes it was just for fun.

The local law enforcement people were very worried one night when a gang of motorcycle hippies from Denver threatened to ride up one summer night and teach the whole town a lesson.

The local cowboys and Indians were waiting for them and a fight ensured. No injuries beyond a few scratches and bruises, but the final outcome was one broken storefront window and a motorcycle gang of newly minted short-haired hippies limping out of town southbound on highway #789 to the raucous singing of a combined cowboy and Indian chorus.

Shearing hippies was evidently a fairly popular pass time in that era, especially in Rocky Mountain ranching towns.

[dfwgator]

If this is the best they can pull out, how pathetic.

As pathetic, as Romney apologizing for it. This guy is going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Bubba_Leroy]

The fact that the lamestream media is resorting to dredging up a 47 year old incident from when Romney was in high school is a pretty good sign.

I am sure that the long awaited reports on Obama’s life before 2008 will be forthcoming soon.

[torchy]

Now, if he would take the apology one step further and withdraw from the GOP race, we might get somewhere.

AMEN!

[kevcol]

The fact that the lamestream media is resorting to dredging up a 47 year old incident from when Romney was in high school is a pretty good sign.

its no coincidence this story (implied homo bullying by Willard) is posted the day after Obamao endorses homo-marriage.

[Diogenesis]

What was pathetic, NEWBIE?

Has ROMNEY been a man to take Ownership for RomneyCARE's Death Panels?

Has ROMNEY been a man to take Ownership for his Team's attacks
against Sen. Thompson, GOP candidates, proofers, Gov. Palin, and her children?

Has ROMNEY been a man to take Ownership for HIS contribution
to the attack on the Maucks?

---

Probe: Mitt missed chance to keep Tavares jailed - Could have nixed killer’s early exit

Friday, December 28, 2007 - Boston Herald
"Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s administration failed to act on disciplinary recommendations
that would have kept ex-con killer Daniel Tavares locked up another year -
and behind bars at the time he was accused of killing a newlywed couple in Washington state."

"Despite Tavares’ long history of violence, the Romney-led Department of Correction
took no action on recommendations that he be stripped of “good time” because
of assaults on prison guards in 2003 and 2005, said sources familiar with a state probe into the case."

Once again as Romney let conservatism slide (never had it anyway)
Romney made certain that they died.

---

"Governor Mitt Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to out-of-state Republicans,
has passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced,
instead tapping registered Democrats or independents -- including two gay lawyers who
have supported expanded same-sex rights, a Globe review of the nominations has found.
Of the 36 people Romney named to be judges or clerk magistrates, 23 are either registered Democrats
or unenrolled voters who have made multiple contributions to Democratic politicians
or who voted in Democratic primaries, state and local records show.
In all, he has nominated nine registered Republicans, 13 unenrolled voters,
and 14 registered Democrats."
- Boston Globe 7/25/2005

---

Romney Rewards one of the State's Leading Anti-Marriage Attorneys by Making him a Judge
Romney told the U.S. Senate on June 22, 2004, that the "real threat to the States is not the
constitutional amendment process, in which the states participate,
but activist judges who disregard the law and redefine marriage . . ."
Romney sounds tough but yet he had no qualms advancing the legal career of one
of the leading anti-marriage attorneys. He nominated Stephen Abany to a District Court.
Abany has been a key player in the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association which,
in its own words, is "dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision
on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated."
- U.S. Senate testimony by Gov. Mitt Romney, 6/22/2004 P>

---

"Romney announces he won't fill judicial vacancies before term ends
Despite his rhetoric about judicial activism, Romney announced that
he won't fill all the remaining vacancies during his term - but instead
leave them for his liberal Democrat successor!
Governor Mitt Romney pledged yesterday not to make a flurry of lame-duck
judicial appointments in the final days of his administration . . . David Yas,
editor of Lawyers Weekly, said Romney is "bucking tradition" by resisting the urge to
fill all remaining judgeships. "It is a tradition for governors to use that power to appoint judges
aggressively in the waning moments of their administration," Yas said.
He added that Romney has been criticized for failing to make judicial appointments.
"The legal community has consistently criticized him for not filling open seats quickly enough
and being a little too painstaking in the process and being dismissive of the input of the
Judicial Nominating Commission," Yas said.
- Boston Globe 11/2/2006

[torchy]

Actually, the story (and Romney's evasion of punishment for his crime) shows that he IS a libertine who considers himself one of the Masters who is above the laws that apply to us peons.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Amazing powers of recall. I went to high school in the late 1970s and I couldn’t tell you much of anything that happened back then.