It'll be interesting to see if this story has legs.

At some point during my drug addled tenure at Lindenhurst Senior High a group of rotten bastards shaved the head of Polish immigrant that barely spoke English. The "pranksters" involved were miserable cunts, all of them. This says a lot to me about the type of person Romney is.

Teenager's brains aren't fully developed, especially in the frontal cortex (where a person's sense of good judgment is based). That's why a lot of them do really, really stupid/evil/sick shit, again and again.

It sucks that Romney was a bully when he was a teen, but he's not a teen anymore. Stick to his adult bullshit, not his teenaged, pre-developed-brain years bullshit.

I should have read the comments in the link to Dan's earlier slog entry first... my comment here @2 was already brought up there.

Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

I don't like Romney. But high school stuff should be forgotten. period. *especially* when it's more than 5-10 years in the past.
There's plenty of more recent evidence to skewer him.

yes but for popular, entitled boys like Romney it is "just a prank" since, as lesser beings, we don't really count as human.
Therefore whatever abuse they unleash on is just harmless fun.

@2 - Between this story and the stories about how he treats family pets... I do question his empathy and basic humanity. It's one thing to be one of the kids who wasn't developed enough to recognize that what teenage-Mitt did was seriously fucked up and to stop it, but to be an instigator of that action... there is something more going on than not having a fully developed brain.

Another "tell" is that he issued the standard GOP non-apology apology -- "I apologize if what I did offends you", rather than "I apologize for what I did".

Yes, this is old news from many years ago.

But, when you add it up to all the other stories involving cruelty and arrogance you get the sense that the man just believes he is entitled to anything.

See:

dog on roof
Vietnam War draft deferment
pro draft protest
$10,000 bet
mansion with car elevator
living in Paris palace
Bain Capitol

@2: Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947. This incident occurred after spring break in 1965. This means he was around his 18th birthday. That is well old enough to know that terrorizing a gay kid is wrong. If he was 14 then it might be forgiven.

You know, it's almost as if the Obama campaign knew this story would be coming out today.....

Just saying.

@2,

Given that his behavior has really not changed over the past 55 years, I'm perfectly happy to hang this around his neck. Sometimes teenagers do shitty things because they don't know any better, and sometimes they do shitty things because they're fucking assholes. Romney is pretty obviously the latter.

Some clear indications here that you're dealing with a sociopath.

I still do wonder if sociopaths are born or made. I wouldn't be surprised with the most assuredly lenient attitude of his insanely wealthy parents, that a lot of this bad behavior was never addressed, thus giving rise to a sociopath.

It is very interesting that these kinds of character flaws go so unreported by the media. I came across this Wikipedia page a few days ago. Growing up in Chicago when Da Mayor reigned, I (1) never realized there'd been such race riots and (2) certainly never realized that the Mayor had most likely led groups terrorizing, killing and brutalizing innocent Chicagoans as a teen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Rac…

To think what the press put Bill Clinton through for the consensual and stupid sex acts he shared. But this type of deep and disturbing behavior gets a pass. Don't give up. It has to change.

I'd never heard that story about GWB. If it's true, good for him. I really don't like him but he does seem to have a few more threads of humanity than Mitt has ever demonstrated. I didn't like McCain either but he showed some humanity at times, too. Romney is a vacant shell where a human should be.

@2
"That's why a lot of them do really, really stupid/evil/sick shit, again and again."

Okay. But they don't forget things like that, do they?

"It sucks that Romney was a bully when he was a teen, but he's not a teen anymore."

So how is he addressing his actions when he was a teenager?
He's claiming he does not remember performing those actions.

"Stick to his adult bullshit, not his teenaged, pre-developed-brain years bullshit."

But that is the issue. Now that his brain is fully developed he is claiming that he does not remember doing those things.

Instead of acting like an adult and admitting that he did things that hurt people when he was a teenager.
And then apologizing for doing those things.

Instead, he claims amnesia but says that if he did do something (which he does not recall doing) then he is sorry if someone was offended by the thing that he may not have done in the first place because he certainly does not remember doing it.

How does that work?
What will Romney "apologize" for that he does not remember doing?

@2- the thing that makes this chilling for me is Romney's denial. Denial of even remembering the incident.

We all do stupid shit as teenagers that we regret. And I'd forgive Romney if he's looked at camera with a serious face and been like "I do remember that incident. It's something I've regretted for a very long time. I was young and stupid. Next question."

But to try and wash it away like it never happened? Or to legitimately not have had any impression of causing that much terror to another human being?

Imagine, being pinned down by bullies, and one of them is pointing sharp steel scissors at your head.

On my first day of junior high I was wedged into a locker and left there. A teacher got a janitor to unlock me almost an hour later. Sons of bitches.

@9

And "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."
And "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

@13: I don't like Mitt Romney, but I doubt he's a sociopath and I would prefer that you would stop using that term. Armchair diagnosing another person with a mental illness is a deeply offensive act. It only helps to enforce the stigma about mental illness in that those who have them are dangerous and bad people who should not be associated with.

You can describe Mitt Romney with a better term: an asshole. You don't need to play an armchair psychiatrist and re-enforce stigmas with that term.

Btw, the reason I don't think he meets the definition of something like anti-social personality disorder (where sociopathy would fall into) is because something like ASPD is very rare, while the behavior that Mitt Romney exhibits is common among the privileged classes. He is an asshole because he was raised to be an aristocrat and falls within the norms of that class.

When George W. Bush makes you look like a piece of shit, you're doing something wrong.

Seriously!

I blame the teachings of his cult...er I mean church.

> When George W. Bush makes you look like a piece of shit, you're doing something wrong.

Paul Motherfucking Constant FTW.

@23 is correct.

No, he does not get a pass because this was a teenaged prank.

First, this was not a typical teenaged prank. He led a group assault on a kid. A traumatizing enough assault that the target clearly remembered it till the day he died decades later.

Second, I flatly do not believe either his lack of memory or his non-apology apology. Everybody else involved in the assault remembers it, but Willard has no memory of it? Really? Pretty much everybody else involved in the incident acknowledges and is sincerely ashamed of their bad behavior. Nothing but a non-apology from Willard.

I might grudgingly give him a pass if he had behaved like the rest of his gang: owning their bad behavior and showing sincere remorse. Willard has done neither. He does not get a pass.

I dunno....all this shit makes Romney that much more attractive to his base. Probably leaked by his own campaign team...

Sorry, but the only people convinced by these stories are those already voting democrat.

Those of us concerned about Obama fiscal policies, and now his attacks on marriage and family, are still going to vote Romney as the best of two bad options. You'll have to do better than teenage stupidities to change that.

I dunno....all this shit makes Romney that much more attractive to his base. Probably leaked by his own campaign team...

Thanks for helping me make my point, Seattleblues.

@22 I'm not a big fan of Mormonism at all...but I have known some devout Mormons who were really good people. Sure there's that weird two-faced disconnection between what they believe and how they act (super nice and yet believing that you are doomed to hell)...but still...

Terrorizing a fellow student? That was Romney the asshole, not Romney the Mormon.

Not sure why I'm putting efforts in to defend his religion though...Mormons! Am I right?

Man, Willard is having a shitty week!

First, he loses NV and ME to Ron Paul.

Then he's caught by surprise by the President's decision on marriage equality.

Now he's on the defensive regarding this.

@28

See, in your cult of Messiah worship around Obama, you forget basic politics.

I don't vote Republican because they're always right. I vote Republican because the Democrats are childishly silly about economics and social policy. Similarly, I don't always vote with enthusiasm for a candidate, when he or she is the best of two options. I wouldn't vote for Romney, since his near liberal views bother me. But I would happily vote against the disastrous Obama. What was the debt again, 13 trillion and raising? We simply can't afford another 4 years of that kind of insanity.

@27 - What you see as an "attack" on marriage and family is actually the exact opposite, to those of us living in the real world. ALL families and people matter. Supporting marriage equality = supporting families.

I can give Romney some leeway as to his actions as a young man. We all do really harmful and fucking stupid things as kids.

I kicked a guy in the face in middle school, knocking him unconscious because he grabbed my ass. Of course I was homophobic then, essentially all young males are in some way.

The difference is, I still feel bad about it, and I do not feel the same way about homosexuals as I did 15 or so years ago. I do not pretend it did not happen and offer fake apologies for it.

@27: How does Obama's support of gay families specifically harm your family?

@31: Yeah, not like when Reagen shrunk the national debt and deficit by....oh wait.

I mean, not like George W. doubled the national debt....shit...

Well, at least George W. did not take a surpus and turn it into a defi...dammit.

Meanwhile, under Obama, the national debt only increased about 70% or so. Not like that is a good thing, but put into perspective, it means you are full of shit.

Also, surplus this month!

@1

Guess it has legs.

https://twitter.com/#!/stevebruskCNN/sta…

And it's relevant:

As governor, Romney fought with and then scrapped a state commission that was to curb bullying of gays in schools and help prevent teen suicide.

"The Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, created by Republican Gov. William Weld in 1992 in response to newly released statistics showing alarmingly high suicide rates among gay and lesbian teens, was designed to combat harassment in schools. It served at the pleasure of the state’s chief executive. The commission funded Gay Straight Alliances in high schools and provided training and information for teachers."

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/0…

Legally, I believe it's battery, not assault.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm.

OMG what an asshole!

He has obviously gotten a pass for everything throughout his entire life, he's never had to face a difficult consequence even once for anything he's ever done. He shows no empathy and no conscience and no remorse, not even any true convictions beyond what he thinks will get him elected - quite obviously a textbook sociopath.

The contrasts for this election year could NOT be clearer...

It's still relevant because he just dismissed it as a "prank," showing no real remorse beyond "I'm sorry if my little prank offended you" and without demonstrating any understanding of how serious this actually is.

And it's still relevant because apparently "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."

First of all this happened in the 60s.

Back then there were squares and hippies (long hair).

Of course the squares teased the hippies (Animal House...Nedermeyer...)

But back then no one really knew what "gay" was...well, except for gay people, I imagine.

I mean, remember there wasn't any "web". It's not like everyone could YouTube the films of Andy Warhol in 1968.

So if a guy comes in with longer than crew cut hair, in like 1964 or whenever, is he going to get hazed? What do you think?

Put yourself in the other person's moccasins.

Actually, I take back my getting-out-of-work-soon fast math on that 70% number @34...seems the debt has gone up less than 50% in the last four years, from roughly 10 trillion to 14.8 trillion.

@20

You mad? Too fucking bad.

@40
You wrote that in the 60's "no one really knew what "gay" was...well, except for gay people, I imagine."

Seriously?

Lillian Hellman's play, The Children's Hour, about a child accusing her two teachers of being lesbians, was first produced on stage in 1934; it was revived on Broadway in the 50's (at which time it was seen as a metaphor for McCarthyism), and made into a film starring Audry Hepburn and Shirley McLaine in 1961.

Tea and Sympathy, a play about a student being gay-bashed at a boarding school, was produced on Broadway in 1953 and made into a film in 1956.

Boys in the Band was produced Off-Broadway in 1968, and made into a film in 1970.

These are just three examples of plays and films that had broad commercial exposure and critical attention. They were widely known and widely discussed. Somebody was paying for the tickets, and they weren't just gay people.

Try picking up a book like "Stonewall" or "Gay New York" or "The Gay Metropolis." You can research any decade of the 20th century (or earlier, but I'm limiting my discussion to the time period that roughly corresponds to Mitt's life span), and you can find reports of non-conforming men and women being gay bashed, verbally and physically. Sometimes by teenagers. Sometimes by adults. Sometimes by the police.

People knew what "gay" was.

I definitely agree that Mitt is a remorseless, elitist, arrogant prick. He has plenty of adult behavioral examples to back that up.

His "failure to remember" the incident strikes me as pure political assholery. He doesn't think it's important and thus wants everyone else to forget about it.

Still, I've seen teenagers do FAR worse things than leading a pack of your peers to torment and then cut off some guy's hair. FAR worse than that.

Again, many, many teens do shitty things to each other (and pretty much everyone else too). They're immature. Yes, sometimes even at 18. They're teens! I was a dick when I was a teen too.

The difference between Mittens and others is that many of those teens grow up and feel remorse and regret for their actions. Many seek out their victims and apologize (I did). Mitt doesn't. THAT'S the repugnant part of this. That, and the fact that Mitt shows the same amount of arrogant elitist prickishness even now as an adult.

He has no humility at all. That's really fucking dangerous when you control the world's most powerful, nuclear-armed military.

Putting a whoopie cushion on someone's chair is a prank. This is not a prank. Also, while I think Dan's tone is a little over the top (I fucking hate election year punditry), I'm kind of disgusted by some of the comments here defending this as a minor thing from long ago. He was probably 18 when he did it, and he doesn't seem to regret it much. I've made mistakes just like anyone, but morally I'm largely still the same person I was in high school... a person who would have been horrified to witness this. I'm sure Romney is morally largely the same person as well. People change and grow, but Romney's current comments don't indicate a great increase in empathy from those days.

@44: And now you're the bully.

@46 - Thanks for clarifying your position. I totally get where you're coming from now. :-)

I still hold that while GWB was a terrible President, he is probably a decent human being, just one with whom I disagree about a lot of stuff. Romney, on the other hand, just comes across like a sociopath.

A lot of us did stupid things when we were 18. The difference between being an adult and being a craven shitbag is whether you can acknowledge that you did these things and can apologize for them.

Seattleblues@31

I don't vote Republican because they're always right.

No, you obviously vote Republican because you enjoy kicking the shit out of sissies and dogs.

But I would happily vote against the disastrous Obama. What was the debt again, 13 trillion and raising? We simply can't afford another 4 years of that kind of insanity.

And I'll make you an extremely large bet (say $10,000) that 4 years of Romney manning the helm won't magically make things better. Maybe I should remind you that your particular political conceit is that you are not, "childishly silly about economics." Ask any real economist and they'll tell you the same.

No, Seattleblues, the Republicans have lost their putative monopoly on rational issues of fiscal responsibility and foreign policy acumen. Look around the tent because you're mostly going to see people who, 1) believe in the X-Files, 2) fear The Gay, 3) hate Mexicans, 4) worship a wrathful 50ft flaming Jeebus with laser-beam eyes, and/or 5) shoot black folks.

Why don't you just get it over with and move to South Carolina already?

@33,

And one reason why the deficit has increased under Obama has been because of unfunded liabilities (tax cuts and new spending) enacted under Bush. Obama has shown himself more than willing to close the gap with both tax increases and spending cuts, but Republicans won't accept the former.

@27 Shit-bird is going to vote for shit-bird. No surprises there.

Sometime's teenagers make mistakes, and we cut them some slack for it, not pretend it didn't happen. So we cut Mitt some slack -- willingness to forgive -- but he won't apologize and says he doesn't remember. I don't think anyone wants to prosecute Mitt for battery, they just wanted recognition and maybe a sincere apology.

In high school, I fell into the bullied (not bullying) category of people, but I never did anything remotely close to this. Even so, I feel bad for a few things I said to people.

Not only is it relevant because it happened and Mitt doesn't seem to think it's a big deal, but it's also relevant because the Romney campaign has brought up Mitt's CHARACTER and PERSONALITY as a youth as a part of the campaign. If they want the benefit of his youthful personality, if they want to talk about character, then this suddenly becomes relevant.

Just a prank? They cornered the kid, scared the crap out of him, pinned him down, all those kids on top of him, and physically assaulted him (it's not just cutting some hair off)! He was crying and terrified! Mitt Romney was eighteen! That's not a dumb kid in middle school. I don't know how nasty the high school kids you hung out with were, but this is not normal poor human peer pressure behavior. Eighteen-year-olds are young adults and most adults don't restrain and assault someone for any reason. That's an actual crime that Mitt Romney and his boys committed. I can't believe we're giving him a pass. Calling someone names and spreading slander about him is one thing (and it's also inexcusable, by the way), but ganging up on him and assaulting him is a totally different level. But you guys are right when you point out that Romney has continued to be egotistical, greedy, and devoid of empathy. And now, ladies and gentlemen, he wants to use that same level of character to run the country.

My prediction: The controversy will fade away. I-was-young-and-stupid will win the day. Why? Because he's a Republican. Think I'm being partisan? Look at how they've pilloried Obama for the smallest things, half of it made up. Liberals try to do stand up for themselves or voice their concerns and they're "sluts" and attackers of religious freedom. Republicans physically assault a kid and they're just being boys. But look at that preacher who told his congregation (to shouts of "amen!") that non-masculine boys should be punched. For conservatives, being abusive and self-centered is par for the course. They have this Dirty Harry mentality. They hate apologizing and they admire the use of force as the first option to get their way. I'm sure this will play well with Republican voters.

BTW thanks for the GWB story. I always felt that I would like him personally, even if I abhorred the policies of his administration.

@22:

I don't think you can blame his church.

Now, had he and his pals surrounded the kid, wearing dark slacks and short-sleeve white shirts with narrow ties, festooned with rectangular tags identifying them as "Elder Mylastname", and then tried to force their version of holy scripture on him ... yes, that could most definitely be blamed on his church. As a feature, not a bug.

LDS haranguing goes beyond "prank" and might even be (verbally) abusive, but it's not assault and battery. And Mittens wouldn't pretend to have forgotten about the incident. Nor would he issue an "apologize if I offended someone" non-apology.

Please, please, can everyone just resist the impulse to engage in any way with Seattleblues? I know you've all got great points to make, but he's not interested in listening to reason. Or facts. Or informed discussion. He originally came to the pages of the Stranger motivated by some quasi-pathological hatred/closeted crush on Dan Savage. Since posting here, he's realized that he can anonymously get all us liberals hot and bothered with no real repercussion by saying stupid, insulting things, and he gets a little kick out of it. I think the kids call it "trolling". Resist the urge. Ignore.

Ditto @59
Though it is somewhat amusing...for awhile that is, but mostly I just feel "lessened" by it. I read through these comments (and almost nowhere else would I even dip my toes into comment sections... so often a filthy pool of disheartening posts) because I usually gain a variety of insight and opinion, but that's only when there is genuine discussion/debate.
(Also...y'all can be highly entertaining.)

lol @ 58

I was a poor immigrant kid that went to two fancy Ivy League skools on scholarships & summer jobs. Of course, one of them was Harvard. I knew plenty of Mitt Romneys.

Yeah, entitled self-consumed rich preppies grow out of that asshole phase to become caring, generous, considerate adults, in my experience.

Generally I think that anything a person did before age 22 should be written off as the natural effects of being young and dumb, but if, as an adult, you can't properly own up to the wrongness of what you did and apologize for it, that should not be written off. No apology, no forgiveness. I'd forgive Mitt for this if he made a real apology, but this mealy-mouthed evasion is disgusting. It shows that he hasn't learned and isn't really sorry.

You have to go back to 1965 to dig up dirt on Romney?!?

On Obama, last week will do...

But remember, all the time spent discussing this will keep the public's mind off gas at $4.00/gal and the jobless rate at 8.1% (unless you factor in the labor force participation rate, then it's more like 16%).

Interesting that the Bot apologized for something he doesn't even recall.

I honestly hate those bullshit "I'm sorry if you're offended" apologies. It's not just not an apology; it's an attack. It's saying that the other person was the one who was wrong, because they're just so sensitive that you'll have to be the bigger person.

Seattleblues doesn't think it's an issue, but then he appears not to think child sexual abuse in the church is an issue, so what he thinks is an issue isn't really the issue.

Not a fan of Romney, but stories about things he might have done in high school shouldn't be taken seriously by the press. It would be a different if he'd actually been charged with something, but he wasn't, and these accounts come from people who could have their own agendas. I don't trust anyone who's quoting Romney verbatim this many years after the fact, for instance.

I think people on both sides tend to treat Romney's statements on this as a spontaneous expressions of what he thinks.

They're not. They're position statements, designed to appeal to moderate voters without alientating his base. Just as Obama's carefully-weighted statements on gay marriage are just that: carefully-weighted.

Romney might be truly sorry, or he might think it was a hilarious prank. We simply don't know. We aren't reading his diary, we're hearing his campaign speeches.

So the question isn't so much "what does this say about Romney?" as "what does this say about the Republican base?"

If something like this had happened now, it would most likely be treated as a hate crime.

So Romney's half-apology suggests to me that moderate voters aren't prepared to back someone who sees no problem with gay-bashing, but that the Republican base isn't prepared to back a candidate that thinks gay-bashing is a big deal.

PS And, by similar reasoning, Obama's statement tells me that the Democrat base wants someone who's prepared to say they favour gay marriage, but that moderate voters aren't prepared for someone who will try to overrule states on it.