Mitt Romney: Prep School Bully and Gay Basher
Posted: May 10, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, A My Pet Goat Moment, U.S. Politics | Tags: Ann Romney, bullying, Cranbrook School, Gary Hummel, gay bashing, high school, John Lauber, Mitt Romney, non-apology apology, practical jokes, pranks 65 Comments
Mitt Romney, teenage jerk
Jason Horowitz has a must-read article about Mitt Romney’s high school days in today’s Washington Post. As I read the piece, I could feel the anger rising in my chest. At the same time, I must say that I wasn’t really surprised to learn that Romney was an obnoxious jerk and bully as a teenager.
The year was 1965, and there was a new kid at the exclusive Cranbook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His name was John Lauber, and Romney took an immediate dislike to him.
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.
After that, Lauber “seemed to disappear,” and he did not graduate from the school. Horowitz learn that he died in 2004.
Horowitz got this same story from five of Romney classmates, all of whom were interviewed separately. The four who agreed to be named each remembered the incident clearly and expressed guilt and remorse at their participation or lack of action.
Decades later, in the ’90s, one of the men, David Seed ran into Lauber at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and took the opportunity to apologize.
“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.
Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”
And this wasn’t an isolated incident. Another classmate of Romney’s, Gary Hummel, described Romney yelling “Attagirl!” whenever he tried to speak in class. Romney and his friends also mocked and played pranks on an elderly teacher who had impaired vision.
Is this the “wild and crazy” guy that Ann Romney claims is hiding inside her stiff, robotic husband? If so, I hope he stays bottled up.
And guess what? Romney claims to have no memories of any of these incidents! His campaign scrambled to respond to the Horowitz article this morning, and Romney “apologized” on an Oklahoma radio show with the now common “if I offended anyone…” routine:
“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.”
On the attack on Lauber, Romney claimed:
“I don’t remember that incident,” Romney said, laughing. “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case.”
Really? I was born the same year as Romney, 1947, and I also graduated from high school in 1965. I clearly recall fellow students using the words “queer,” “homo,” and “fag,” to mock and bully classmates from junior high onward. Actually, I think most were over that by later in high school. Obviously Romney was not, and IMO he still acts like bully with his blatant lies and vicious negative attacks on his political opponents. I can only imagine what he must have been like as boss.
On Gary Hummel’s claim that Romney made fun of him by shouting “Attaboy!” at him in class, Romney also couldn’t remember doing it, but he had more meaningless excuses:
“As this person indicated, he was closeted,” Romney said. “I had no idea that he was gay and can’t speak to that even today. But as to the teasing or the taunts that go on in high school, that’s a long time ago. For me, that’s about 48 years ago. Again, if there’s anything I said that is offensive to someone, I certainly am sorry for that, very deeply sorry for that.”
I don’t know what else to say other than this just makes me sick to my stomach. I didn’t care for bullies back when I was in junior high and high school, and I like them even less now.
Thursday Reads
Posted: May 10, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Democratic Politics, GLBT Rights, legislation, Mitt Romney, morning reads, Republican politics, Team Obama, torture, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: CIA torture tapes, civil unions, Joe Biden, Log Cabin Republcans, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, racial profling, Reince Priebus, RNC, rural post offices, same-sex marriage, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, waterboarding 43 Comments
Good Morning!!
Yesterday was a great day. President Obama took a clear stance on a very important issue, saying that same sex couples should have the same marriage rights and privileges as every other American. But this really is not about marriage or about LGBT rights. It’s about equal rights for every citizen of this country. The President’s action is a big step in the right direction.
The New York Times has the behind the scenes skinny on how Obama decided to take his stand yesterday.
Before President Obama left the White House on Tuesday morning to fly to an event in Albany, several aides intercepted him in the Oval Office. Within minutes it was decided: the president would endorse same-sex marriage on Wednesday, completing a wrenching personal transformation on the issue.
As described by several aides, that quick decision and his subsequent announcement in a hastily scheduled network television interview were thrust on the White House by 48 hours of frenzied will-he-or-won’t-he speculation after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. all but forced the president’s hand by embracing the idea of same-sex unions in a Sunday talk show interview.
Obama had intended to state his position on the issue before this summer’s Democratic Convention, but Joe Biden’s statement of his support for same-sex marriage last weekend accelerated the decision-making process.
Initially Mr. Obama and his aides expected that the moment would be Monday, when the president was scheduled to be on “The View,” the ABC daytime talk show, which is popular with women….
Yet the pressure had become too great to wait until then, his aides told him; on Monday, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, was pummeled with questions from skeptical reporters about Mr. Obama’s stance. After the Tuesday morning meeting, Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director, contacted ABC and offered a wide-ranging interview with the president for the following day.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney announced that he continues to oppose same-sex marriage and he also opposes civil unions that resemble marriage. Appearing on a local Fox station in Colorado, Romney
“Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told KDVR. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not.”
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus responded to Obama’s announcement by suggesting that same-sex marriage would be an issue in the presidential race.
“While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear,” Priebus said. “We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.”
IMO, it would be huge mistake for Romney to focus on social issues in the campaign, his campaign knows it. Just look what happened when Rick Santorum did it. But Romney should be forced to clarify his stance on this issue. Buzzfeed offered five questions to help him do so. Check it out.
Oddly, Log Cabin Republicans were enraged by President Obama’s announcement. Here is the press release the group released yesterday:
“That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director. “Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”
Addicting Info responded to the Log Cabin Republican release:
Here’s the official White House list of stuff the Obama administration has done for the LGBT community. It is not remotely comprehensive. Obama has done more for the LGBT community in three years than every single previous president combined. If that’s “manipulating” the LGBT community, what do the Log Cabin Dummies consider “full-throated support?” Should he divorce Michelle and marry Joe Biden?
As for the claim of “political gain;” what gain would that be? Will moderates suddenly sit up and say, “YES! The hell with the economy! I was only interested in gay rights!”? Will conservatives suddenly feel that their institutional bigotry is misplaced and they should embrace the LGBT community as fellow humans instead of condemning them to burn for eternity as “unnatural?” Will the GOP decide that perhaps gay-baiting is not the way to go and focus on the issues? Hell, gay Republicans can’t even muster any support for Obama. They’re outraged! They’re offended! Not at their own party whose official platform is virulently anti-gay but at that goddamned Obama for not supporting them sooner! Obama gets nothing from supporting gay marriage and only hands the right another cudgel to attack him with.
{{Loud, extended applause}}
Can you stand some more good news? Think Progress reports that on Tuesday,
Congress took up legislation that could significantly impact women’s health — and no, it doesn’t limit contraception or force anything into their vaginas.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act aims to protect pregnant women in the workplace from common discrimination — not being allowed to carry a water bottle, for example — that threatens their health and stops them from being productive employees, or from working altogether.
Introduced by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA) and George Miller (D-CA), the bill would “ensure that pregnant women are not forced out of jobs unnecessarily or denied reasonable job modifications that would allow them to continue working,”
The Republicans will fight it, and let’s hope lots of pregnant women hear about a new front in the War on Women and punish them in the voting booth.
And here’s just a little more good news from Reuters: U.S. drops plan to close rural post offices.
The U.S. Postal Service said on Wednesday that it is abandoning for now its plan to close thousands of post offices in rural locations and instead will shorten their hours of operation.
The change represents a victory for U.S. lawmakers and rural communities who created a backlash against the cash-strapped agency last summer when it began considering more than 3,600 post offices for closure this year.
Rather than shuttering offices starting next week, when a self-imposed moratorium on closings was set to end, the plan is to cut the operating hours of 13,000 locations with little traffic to between two and six hours a day.
It’s good news/bad news situation, with hours being cut at rural post offices; but it’s a step in the right direction.
And even more good news–can you believe it? The Justice Department announced yesterday that it plans to sue Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona for civil rights violations.
The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio’s office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.
Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.
Justice Department officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman’s refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.
I hate to ruin the upbeat mood, but I felt I had to include this article from the BBC: ‘Vomiting and screaming’ in destroyed waterboarding tapes. It’s an interview with Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA Counterterrorism Ceneter, and the man who destroyed the torture tapes. Read it if you can stand it. I think every American needs to know what was done in our name.
What are you reading and blogging about today?
Breaking: Stan McGee “Abruptly” Resigns as Massachusetts Gaming Commission Head
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: Breaking News, U.S. Politics | Tags: Carl Stanley McGee, child sexual abuse, Gov. Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Gaming Commission, sexual assault 11 Comments
Carl Stanley (“Stan”) McGee
The newly appointed interim head of the state gaming commission abruptly resigned Wednesday night, saying that the ‘‘growing distractions’’ created by allegations of sexual abuse against him had made it impossible to be effective in the job.
In a message to the board, Carl Stanley McGee said that ‘‘after much personal thought’’ he decided to step down to let the commission ‘‘get on with the important public business of job creation and economic development it was created to perform.’’
Board chairman Stephen Crosby, who had staunchly defended McGee’s appointment as interim executive director and had called the 2007 abuse allegations ‘‘meritless’’ and ‘‘warrantless,’’ said Wednesday night that he agreed with McGee’s decision.
On Sunday, I wrote a post about McGee: The Story of Stan McGee: More Evidence that Children Are Expendable in America.
In 2007, while he was on vacation in Florida, McGee was arrested and charged with sexual assault on a 15-year-old boy. The charges were later dropped, but the boy’s parents filed a civil suit against McGee, and the suit was settled in their favor.
Criticism of the appointment had been building after several articles about the alleged assault appeared in local newspapers. According to the Globe,
The resignation by McGee capped a day of mounting criticism over the decision by the board to offer him the job without thoroughly investigating the abuse allegations.
The article suggests that the Commission had decided to hold up the appointment while it did a thorough background check on McGee.
A spokeswoman for the commission hinted the agency might hold up the appointment while it conducts a background check on McGee — even though Crosby has previously said that he and other board members had looked into McGee’s record and found it ‘‘pristine.’’
The spokeswoman, Karen Schwartzman did not return messages from the Globe, but she told New England Cable News host Jim Braude that ‘‘after voting to extend an offer to Mr. McGee, the vote made clear that it was subject to passing a background check. … The background check for Mr. McGee is under way and is not complete yet. Mr. McGee won’t be on the commission payroll until such time as the background check is complete.’’
McGee will return to his post as assistant secretary for policy and planning in Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration. Maybe it’s time the Governor also did a background check on McGee.
UPDATED: Obama Endorses Marriage Equality. (Will Obama Endorse Marriage Equality this afternoon? All eyes on the ABC interview…)
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: Human Rights | Tags: Gay Marriage, LGBT, marriage equality 81 Comments
YES, HE DID… with Hillary’s influence I bet 😉
Barack Obama becomes the first SITTING President of The United States to utter these words:
I think same sex couples should be able to get married.
Full context:
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts, in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.
Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer.”
Earlier Sky Dancing Post… Via Think Progress:
REPORT: Obama Expected To Endorse Marriage Equality In ABC News Interview
By Igor Volsky on May 9, 2012 at 1:35 pm
As President Obama prepares to sit down with ABC’s Robin Roberts this afternoon just hours after voters in North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions, political reporters are predicting that he may finally complete his evolution and endorse the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian people.
“Every expectation that we will, within the next hour, be in a different world, where we will have a President of the United States who supports the legalization of gay marriage,” Mark Halperin said this afternoon during an appearance on MSNBC. “The Vice President, I think, forced his hand. But even before the Vice President spoke on Meet The Press in favor of gay marriage, the President was headed in this direction,” he added. Watch it:
As the 2012 general election officially draws closer–The Fierce Urgency of NOW is finally upon us! Heh…
Still, IF this pans out–and I stress IF, because if there are more “evolving” caveats… then that’s a dealbreaker.
But, IF Obama actually endorses marriage equality and actually *stands up* for LGBT rights for a change, I just may finally have somebody/something to finally vote FOR (as opposed to against) in this godforsaken election.
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