Posted on 05/10/2012 12:10:38 PM PDT by presidio9
There may be a good reason voters can’t get a good bead on Mitt Romney. And it may be because the real Romney has a troubled, sadistic history. High School classmates of Romney recall an incident that’s disturbing to its core. Romney, then a popular senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School in Michigan, disapproved of classmate John Lauber’s long, blond locks, which Romney allegedly took as a clue that Lauber was a homosexual. So Romney assembled a posse of bullies and held the boy down and brutally chopped off his hair.
“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.
Today, Romney’s actions would be considered a hate crime. The assault itself is a felony.
So is Mitt Romney sorry for his actions 47 years ago? Nope, unlike five of his classmates, the Republican presidential candidate has no recollection of assaulting Lauber. His campaign team put out this statement:
… the former Massachusetts governor has no recollection of the incident.
Why would Mitt Romney not remember straddling another boy and savagely cutting off his hair? Because the event meant nothing to Romney. Lauber was beneath his contempt. He wasn’t human to the young Romney.
But won’t voters find it disturbing is that five classmates vividly recall the event, but Romney doesn’t? Uh oh, time for shake the Romney Etch-A-Sketch…. Oh that brutal attack? It appears Mitt does remember assaulting Lauber, but…
I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.
And he still hasn’t apologized.
Also Romney is trying to claim that rampant homophobia didn’t exist in the 1960s? Perhaps that’s why it was so easy for homosexual men to come out back then. You better try again Mitt, you’re getting caught in yet another deep, disturbing lie.
Romney’s actions may be decades old, but they highlight a current problem among the Republican Party: Bullying is an acceptable form of punishment to quell dissent and non-conformity. From Ray Kelly’s spying on Muslims and brutal treatment of peaceful Occupy Wall Street voters to Rush Limbaugh’s labeling of independent women as “feminazis,” “sluts,” and “prostitutes,” the GOP has bcome vile, mean, and intolerant at its core.
Lauber died in 2004, so it is too late for Mitt Romney to apologize to him, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t apologize to the public for his actions. As a bullied child myself, I find Romney’s actions in 1965 to be beyond contempt. The emotional scars I bear from the bullying and assaults I had to endure during my teenage years still haunt me.I remember my attackers gleeful faces as they heckled and assaulted me. I remember the names they called me, I remember feeling the spit on my cheek, I remember the punches they threw, I remember the helplessness I felt. There are millions of people like me, we were the “retards,” the “fags,” the “geeks,” and the “losers.” You see, it doesn’t matter to us whether Lauber was gay or not. It also doesn’t matter that Romney didn’t attack him for being gay. What matters is that Lauber was physically assaulted for being different, for being subhuman, to being on a lower social stratus than a scion of wealth and affluence.
I have never received an apologies from the bullies that made my life hell. Today, one of them even denies the events ever happened. To me, this only heightens my contempt for bullies; when caught, they feel it’s acceptable for them to dismiss the event. It either didn’t occur or didn’t matter. My contempt for bullying has only grown because of this. And now, I have a new-found contempt for Mitt Romney, America’s lead bully. And his denying the significance of such an event is just as despicable as the assault.
Are you serial?
As a senior in H.S. a couple of friends of mine and I held them down and cut their hair off while they cried. We laughed and laughed because they were so humiliated in front of everyone as they ran off, head all chopped up with bald spots...
The war on women, the poor, the elderly, Islam, homosexuals, blacks, illegal immigrants, uninsured, Skittle-buyers, long-haired classmates...sheesh, I’m struggling to keep up with who we are at war with. We are going to need a ballpark type scoreboard soon.
Seriously though, if the left is going act all outraged about everything, eventually no-one will notice except the far-left cranks. They are like the 3-year-old that cries about everything. Eventually they are going to get a spanking.
Leftists are evil.
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.
Would Mitt and few of his buds please hold down Obama and shave his head?
Maybe then we can find out what the deal is with that weird scar on Obama’s head, that looks like some sort of deadly wound that has healed.
I don't believe Romney has ever been popular in his life. I'll agree with libs that Mitt is nearly as liberal and thus nearly as pathetic as Obama, but can't they find something truthful to slam him over?
They could shave his beard,
but I doubt they could hold down Michelle to do that.
It’s the title of an essay by George Orwell about his experiences in English Boarding School.
It is obvious that the extreme lefty folks putting out this tripe, and not having the slightest interest in the juvenile doings of St Barry of Honolulu, are not in need of Viagra, because the thing that Viagra is supposed to help can be done for the these lefties by just finding and putting out information about Romney acting juvenile, when he WAS juvenile...
That was the requirement for $2.15 per hour...............and a job. Funny I never felt bullied?
Yup!
Barack Obama had drug fuled sexual encounter with a man and the media is silent.
Barack Obama called patriotic Americans “teabaggers” as a homophobic slur and the media is silent.
Identity politics only matters when you serve The Party.
The Occupant of the White House associated with a known traitor and terrorist and the media said “big whoop”.
The Occupant of the White House sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years and the media said “big whoop”.
I don’t give a fig about this “controversy”.
The Media needs to grow up.
Right out of the Fluke playbook.
>>As a bullied child myself<<
This is precisely why this guy is a leftist. He’s equated bullying with conservatism, for some very stupid reason. This is his revenge: trying to bully conservatives — or rather, people from being conservative. Again, for some stupid reason, it never dawned on this guy that if bullying is wrong, its wrong for everyone. But he has no problem with name calling people he doesn’t like or agree with.
Its no more complicated than that.
Please, please let there be a brokered convention.”
OK, let’s nominate someone else .... who will be attacked on the basis of some BS story from 4 decades ago (Bush DUI/AWOL, Gingrich divorcing cancer patient, Perry’s racist rock, etc.)
The pattern of media pulling BS stories to attack GOP candidates while ignoring Obama’s whole life story is so typical ... and so lame.
I am not a Romney supporter, I wanted Newt very badly to be the nominee. However, A statement of complete denial about anything is not a good idea. It leaves one too open to an attack!
I would DEMAND that Obama release his entire set of records before I released anything else. I am certain that there is no record of this incident in Romney's records at school.
Romney was an undergraduate at BYU and a Post Graduate of the JD and MBA programs at Harvard. I highly doubt someone with a record of assault would be admitted to these schools, even with a wealthy father!
I also thought about it, And couldn't care less.
Also I had instances of being bullied in school, as well as having incidences of ‘correcting’ more than one bullies attitude in the past.
This entire anti-bullying BS is a direct result of the pusification of the country. People should consider having more children. Nothing like a big brother to help dissuade a bully!
50 years ago the seniors would shave the freshmens head.
“brutal treatment of peaceful Occupy Wall Street voters”
Shut up.
Just shut up.
Our president took cocaine.
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