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Romney <em>Would </em>Be Sorry <em>If </em>He Hurt Anyone With High School "Pranks"
By
John Del Signore
Published May 11, 2012
Modified May 11, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 11, 2012
Modified May 11, 2012
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Mitt Romney does not remember that one time in his senior year at prep school when he allegedly pinned down a gay classmate and cut off his slightly longish hair. ("It was a hack job," one classmate recalls. "Clumps of hair taken off.") But everyone else who witnessed and participated in the bullying does remember, and Romney isn't denying it. He's even sorry—sort of. In addition to not recalling the episode, yesterday Romney sought to frame the alleged bullying as the sort of stupidity all teenagers are prone to—not something that speaks to his character as a rich kid with a mean streak.
In an interview with Fox, the presumptive Republican candidate for president offered this classic non-apology apology: "I had no idea what that individual’s sexual orientation might be. Going back to the 1960s, that wasn’t something that we all discussed or considered, so that’s simply just not accurate. I don’t recall the incident myself, but I’ve seen the reports and I’m not going to argue with that. There’s no question but that I did some stupid things when I was in high school and obviously if I hurt anyone by virtue of that, I would be very sorry for it and apologize for it."
Boys will be boys, eh Mitt? Richard Cohen at the Washington Post isn't satisfied with Romney's statement: "For Romney, this is not a failure of memory. It is a failure of candor. Or . . . and this is in some degree even worse, the incident meant so little to Romney that I can only conclude that he lacks empathy. He could bully a classmate at the Cranbrook School - cut off his flop of bleached blond hair - and not give it a moment’s thought. This falls into a different category — the-I-love-to- fire-people category, or the down-with-Planned-Parenthood oath he took during the primary fight. He cannot distinguish between losers and victims. They both leave him cold."
Romney's Cranbrook classmate, Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend, tells ABC, "It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it … because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with." Maxwell describes the incident as "assault and battery... I saw it with my own eyes."
Others came to Romney's defense, and his campaign spent yesterday sending positive comments from former classmates to reporters. "One of the last words I would ever use to describe Mitt would be bully," John French, a Cranbrook classmate, told the Times. "If you’ve ever been around guys in a boys’ school, you kid each other and pull little pranks on things, what you might call sophomoric humor, but I really, honestly, do not remember anything being malicious."
Jodi Kantor, the reporter who shares a byline on the Times piece, took to Twitter to cut to the heart of the debate: Is the incident something that speaks to Romney's character, or the kind of stupid teenager behavior we've all been guilty of, in one form or another?
@jodikantor The worst moment in HS for me didn't include committing assault and battery. #justsayin
— Tiff (@tiffpats4eva) May 10, 2012
@jodikantor @tiffpats4eva @a4alice It was a crime! It is NOT a prank to hold someone down who is screaming & crying and assault him!
— FedUp_Mom (@Fedup_Mom) May 11, 2012
Eric Altman at Time has also come to Romney's defense, arguing that "it seems dangerous to draw meaningful conclusions about Romney the adult from the not-so-shocking revelation that a high-school kid sometimes acted like a jerk. It would be relevant if Romney had exhibited this kind of bad judgment, prejudice or cruelty in his adult life. There’s no evidence of that. If Obama is allowed to 'evolve,' Romney is entitled to the same privilege." Nothing's ever stopped Romney from being entitled to privilege before, so why stop now?
Tagged
bullying
cranbrook
election 2012
mitt romney
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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