I remember we were standing around in the breezeway before fifth period social studies and this kid Jim walked up to a girl named Tammy and began saying a bunch of sexual stuff to her. Tammy wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t pretty enough, or rich enough. But something in her manner turned him on and he was the sort of kid who granted himself the right to be sexually aggressive with girls, particularly girls who were socially vulnerable.
Jim wasn’t a jock or a charmer. His social manner was awkward and his voice was oddly high-pitched. But he was big and handsome enough and most of all he was rich and this gave him a sense of entitlement that the rest of us understood and accepted. I don’t remember what Jim said to Tammy exactly, but they’d done this kind of hostile flirting before, and so Tammy said something back to him and suddenly he grabbed at her breasts. She tried to knock his hands away and laughed, mostly, I can see now, to stave off her own panic.
I remember that Tammy had a friend named Jen, and that a friend of Jim’s reached for her boobs and that she yelled No as loud as she could. I can still see her pretty face, flushed with the sudden color of her terror, which was enough to get this kid to stop. Jim didn’t stop. He got behind Tammy and wrestled her to the ground and began to rub himself against her. I don’t know how long they were on the ground. Maybe it was just a few seconds. Maybe it was minute.
What I do remember is that he reached between her legs and grabbed her there and that he looked up at the rest of us who were standing just a few feet away, watching, doing nothing, and with a look of abject triumph he said, “Man, Tammy, you’ve got some big ass pussy lips.”
*
He sexually assaulted her. That would be the simple legal description of what he did, though it was worse than that, because he didn’t just want to harm her. He wanted to humiliate her publicly. And he wanted us to take part, to bear witness, to watch and admire what he was man enough to do, and to hear him malign—in that eerie, effeminate voice of his—her intimate anatomy.
I wish I could report that I did a single thing, that I confronted Jim, that I comforted Tammy, that I told a teacher. But like the rest of the kids in fifth period social studies at Wilbur Junior High, I shuffled into class and sat at my desk and tried not to look at Tammy, who was trying desperately not to cry, or at Jenny, who was trying to comfort Tammy without drawing the attention of our teacher, who was trying to get us to give a shit about the Constitutional Convention.
*
That’s how adolescence works. It’s a place of tremendous pain and recklessness, a place where you have to pretend not to care about anyone or anything too much because to do so would release the chaos of your actual self into the world. It’s a place where tyranny resides as much in circumstance as in character, a place where our shadow selves emerge: ugly, ferocious, lit up by shame.
I remember every single cruelty I endured and inflicted, teasing a disabled teacher behind her back, grappling with a classmate and ripping open the stitches on his head, weeping in fear and confusion at the kids who bullied me in metal shop. Adolescence scrawls its crimes on the heart.
*
And thus we arrive at this, reported in the Washington Post:
In the spring of 1965, when Mitt Romney was a senior at an exclusive Michigan private school, he became obsessed with the unconventional haircut of another student, a soft-spoken younger boy named John Lauber who was routinely teased for being a suspected homosexual. “He can’t look like that,” Romney told a friend of his. “That’s wrong. Just look at him!”
A few days later Romney, who was at this point the son of the state’s governor, led a posse of fellow students in a physical assault on Lauber. They tackled him and pinned him to the ground. Lauber’s eyes filled with tears and he screamed for help as Romney hacked away at his hair with scissors. Romney then led the cheering mob back to his room.
The reason we know this happened is because five different friends of Romney who either witnessed or took part in the assault spoke to the Post about it, independently and on the record. Every single one of them expressed remorse.
“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me… What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”
“It was a hack job. It was vicious.”
“He was just easy pickins.”
One of Romney’s close friends recalled expecting some punishment to be meted out to the governor’s son. But nothing ever happened to him.
Lauber was later expelled from the school for smoking a cigarette.
*
The Post also reported that Romney made degrading comments about another classmate he felt was effeminate, and orchestrated a “prank” in which he caused a nearly blind teacher to walk into a glass door.
*
Romney’s response to the story has been two-fold. First, he said this:
“I’m not going to be too concerned about [the Post] piece. They talk about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school and they describe some that, well, you just say to yourself, back in high school I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended obviously I apologize but overall high school years were a long time ago.”
He insisted that he didn’t remember the hair-cutting episode.
Then his campaign began scouring the candidate’s Rolodex for old friends who could vouch for what a jolly good fellow Romney was in high school. Because that’s what Romney does when he’s “not too concerned” about a major newspaper reporting that he was a vicious homophobe in high school.
*
Romney performed public service in high school. He met his future wife. He was a poor athlete who collapsed near the finish line during a cross-country race, and later he became a cheerleader. He petitioned to be admitted into honors classes, after being denied. His cruelty to others seems to have derived from a compulsion to be popular. Do people ever really change?
*
As I read about Romney’s adolescent exploits, I found myself thinking about Tobias Wolff’s sad and lovely novel, Old School. The narrator of that book is an insecure and manipulative scholarship student trying to pass at a fancy prep school, a kid who understands the prerogatives of wealth: “You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that is already reserved for them.”
But I don’t think Romney feels this way, not deep down. I think he has more in common with Wolff’s striving narrator, actually. By which I mean that he seems to display, as an adult, the same need to scheme and maneuver to get ahead. Like George W. Bush, he was an essentially frightened, unloved young man who came of age under tremendous pressure to live up to a famous father, who failed to distinguish himself as a scholar or an athlete and was relegated to the sidelines, whose desperate jocularity was shot through with a kind of unexamined sadism. Both men have forged a path to success via an alarming absence of self-reflection.
*
I don’t mean to suggest that Romney is without compassion. I believe, for instance, that he loves his wife and his children, and that he believes in God and the flag. But there is something in his character that I am starting to get frightened about, an unwillingness, or an inability, to feel remorse, to simply own up to a moral failing, to apologize not just if “somebody was hurt” but because you know, deep down, that you hurt someone.
Think about it: here are these half dozen men who took part in a savage act nearly fifty years ago. It has haunted all of them. And the ringleader, the guy who made the plan and led the mob and cut the victim’s hair off remembers… nothing?
It’s just bullshit, total fucking sociopathic bullshit. And it makes me sad that such an episode comes to light and all Romney can do—a guy who wants to be elected to our highest office—is nervously lie and make excuses, as if this were political problem. It’s not a political problem. It’s a moral problem. It’s a sin he committed for which any believer would seek atonement.
*
John Lauber, the boy whose hair Romney would not tolerate, died of cancer some years ago. A fellow high school classmate happened to run into him in an airport before his death. The classmate apologized for not doing more to help him during the attack. Lauber paused, then spoke about how frightened he’d been during the incident. “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then,” he said.
*
“It was the nature of literature,” Wolff writes, “to behave like the fallen world it contemplated, this dusky ground where subterfuge reigns and certainty is folly.”
It’s no coincidence that the one man willing to lie about his savagery as an adolescent is the one running for president. In a sense, the modern political system selects for this kind of moral amnesia.
But it matters. George W. Bush was a destructive president because he was a deluded man. He made bad policy because he lacked the empathy and humility to think about the human cost of those policies.
*
Another way of saying all this would be for me to admit that, wherever else I might be in this world, I am also back there at Wilbur Junior High, standing in that breezeway before fifth period social studies as Jim walks up to Tammy and grabs her breast and tackles her to the ground and digs his hand between the legs of that poor girl and even now I’m doing nothing to stop him and I should have but I didn’t because I was too frightened and there is nothing I can do for the rest of my life that will undo that cowardice or the shame that any decent human being, in remembering such a thing, should feel.
94 responses
I read this without knowing you were the author, Steve. It is an awesome and powerful analysis of this event. Thanks for such a thoughtful piece. Andrew (Sewanee 2001)
But you HAVE done something about it.
You revealed you regret and remorse. May Tammy read this and know you have FEELINGS about the incident.And I hope now as an adult take steps when someone is being bullied or treated badly; .speaking truth to power is not easy in adolescence. but setting an example as an adult is. Thank you for your courage in saying what you did and how you felt afterward.
Romney is the worst kind of bullying coward. He “can’t remember?” Well what else can’t he remember?? How he said when running for Governor of MA that he was a gay rights supporter? That he forgot his principles and can’t find them?? He is NOT what we need to lead our country. He will forget the poor the disabled the college students and the women. And that’s just the short list…oh he forgot about Detroit too……
I really just don’t get Romney’s reaction to all this. Would it surprise anyone to find out that Romney–that anyone, really–was an asshole in high school? It’s not like assholes are few and far between in high schools. Teenagers are pretty horrible at being human beings in my experience. I certainly was.
So now, all these years later, this story comes out, and he can’t just say “you know, I was a bit of a dick in high school and I’m sorry I was a part of that. But that’s not who I am now,” and then segue into whatever bullshit political talking point he wants to make about how same-sex marriage is like being forced to lick Satan’s sweet ass or something. It boggles me about how hard, impossible perhaps, it is for some people to simply say “I’m sorry.”
As I’ve read about the ways Romney was a bully in high school, part of me has been appalled and part of me has wondered whether what someone did as a teen should have any bearing on our evaluation of him several decades later.
This very smart and affecting essay has helped me find some clarity on this point. Almond’s stance here — that it’s less about Romeny’s guilt than his utter lack of accountability — strikes me as exactly right. I also love that he confronts his own moral weaknesses at the same time.
I don’t like Romney–I am somewhere left of Kucinich, but I had thought maybe we were being too tough on him about this, (BECAUSE of the memories we all hold, if we are honest, about our adolescence). But you have changed my mind. Of course, none of the other men who were with him and who ARE remorseful are running for office. I wonder if they would express their remorse if they were in the middle of a campaign? But I think you are right: American politics attracts and supports people without empathy. I remember (who was it?) teared up because of some sad event years back and people thought it made him look weak and hurt his campaign. On the contrary, I remember thinking it would be fitting and good if all of Congress felt that kind of empathy, were easily moved by some of the horrendous events and bills before them.
What an amazing, powerful piece. Thank you so much for writing it and giving this act the focus it deserves.
Is he incapable of admitting that he ever did anything wrong? That is an enormous red flag right there.
Absolutely beautiful and very important essay. Thank you, Steve, for writing this.
Do I think it matters what he did 50 years ago? No.
But his spurious claim that he doesn’t remember the event does matter.
— MrJM
When I was young I was a very damaged person who did and said many things about which I am ashamed. I have demonstrably become a different person. So I have been uncomfortable with the way Romney has been judged for high school behavior; I feel I can’t throw stones. But Almond makes excellent points here about remorse, accountability and privilege.
Great piece. But George Bush is more of a foil in all this. There’s a reliable story of him sticking up for a kid his buddies were mocking, in his freshman year of college. ‘Shut up. Why don’t you try walking in his shoes for a while and see how it feels before you make a comment like that?’
Bravo, Steve.
To take it a step even further, perhaps, it might be getting close to time for someone to assert that this was, at best, battery, at worst, metaphorical rape (as is the hair-cutting scene in Oates’s Marya: A Life) — and a hate crime, either way. I don’t know what crimes are so heinous that we’re willing to charge minors as adults, but it’s worth asking whether, had this happened today, Romney would have been charged with a hate crime and tried as an adult.
I still remember being in study hall in high school more than thirty years ago and a bully football player raised my friend, a slight young man from his seat and held him up by his neck and called him horrible homophobic names. I was the only one who yelled stop. I ran to get the teacher but my friend told me to stop – he was scared of future reprisals. I still feel bad about not doing more that day. But I did tell my older sister.
Luckily she was dating the captain of the football team. Thankfully, he had a talk with the bully and it did not happen again. The captain of the football team was a leader, and an amazing musician and he wasn’t afraid to stand up for a beautiful young man.
What Romney did was wrong – you don’t beat up on those that are smaller or weaker. And if you make a mistake, like Romney did, you learn from it. And you admit you were an ass, a jerk, a horrible person. And you change.
I think I’m going to side with most Americans in saying this isn’t a very important discussion. Before you leap to oppose this line of thought, think about the many vicious, irrelevant attacks the right wing have orchestrated on our president and other democratic candidates. How is this really any different? In politics, it essentially becomes each side’s goal to create a demonic image of the opposing candidate. There are many “shocking” stories about Obama’s youth swirling around the internet, and frankly, this story feels like the same sauce – getting all upset about the reaction, not the deed itself. Sure, Romney was likely an ass in high school. I don’t doubt it. But his reaction to being confronted about it isn’t honestly that telling. It would be political suicide to get all sensitive and remorseful like Mr. Almond seems to suggest he should. Please, Americans don’t want that in their president. Maybe Rumpus readers do, but hopefully you’re aware that you represent a far end of the spectrum. Let’s move on, shall we?
i remember very well being in jr. high and befriending the greatest turds in school in order not to be their victim.
melissa – if you were one of the ones unscathed by adolescence, congratulations.
steve – you write like a motherfucker.
You’re right – it should be our choice whether we vote for someone who displays humility and empathy or someone who does not. Who would you pick? That choice hasn’t been on the ballot in my voting lifetime.
Take Away on Bullying –
Teach children to be a WITNESS not a Bystander
Don’t join in
Tell the bully to Stop
Get Help
Imagine if we could cultivate an active citizenry of witnesses with
compassion and courage becoming national traits!
I’m bothered by the aspect where Romney got together a bunch of people to gang up on this kid. He wasn’t a bystander – he wasn’t taken by surprise by what happened. He deliberately gathered other kids together to prey on somebody else. That’s frightening behavior no matter what the age.
Givens = concern-troll
Great piece as always, Steve, but despite your eloquent reasoning, I’m not sure I find this appalling new story to be relevant to the campaign. As someone who was picked on in school, I know it hurts — a lot. But isn’t introducing this episode now another media manipulation, a way to use our built-in emotional reactions to distract from the obligation to do actual nuanced reporting? I already know I’m not voting for Romney because I know his record and, more importantly, I’ve heard him, you know, speak. Knowing this about him changes nothing (a successful politican/businessman was an asshole in his youth…shocking!) and opens the door for further muckraking in what already promises to be an insufferable campaign.
Thank you for writing this. It is very real. When I was in 4th grade I bullied a girl horribly. I was the ring-leader. Like the other men in the story, it has haunted me my whole life. I have had the opportunity to apologize, I was grateful for that. Bullying, real bullying like that damages everyone, the actor, the acted-upon, and as you so clearly demonstrate, the bystanders.
Thank you for your inspired recounting of your “bystander” event and the impact it had on you through your life and your regrets. It is immensely relevant to the Romney bullying event. The contrast between your recollections and retroactive regrets, Romney’s failure to remember, writing off of this incident, and his chuckling at his youthful “indiscretions” is staggering. This man is not fit to be President, precisely because he didn’t learn from this event in his life and the fact that he is still an uncaring, unrelenting priveledged bully with no concept of true empathy. Thank you for sharing your personal insight!
Great piece. Thank you. But don’t you think it’s a stretch to assume this girl actually HAD a “sexual deformity?” Given what we know about the character of her attacker, the familiarity of most junior high students with the female body, and the diversity of female anatomy, it seems presumptive.
Thanks Steve for both writing this and thinking about it. If only our politicians had the capacity for contemplation, compassion, and heart of some of our best writers, like Wolff. It is hard for me to imagine when I look back on my own history, those stupid days, not feeling sometimes, that sudden shocking chill of remorse. Isn’t it just what life is, to long to say to those I’ve hurt, I’m so sorry, and hope to God I’m a better person now? Thanks. I’m a big fan.
Steve’s column makes me proud to be his Dad, and to think that some of his morality might have had to do with his parents’ examples. It also reminds me of a not-forgotten incident in my life, also in the middle school years. A girl in our class was teased and marginalized because she was unattractive and awkward. At some point she offered to buy some trinket of mine in a blatant wish to curry my acceptance. When I told my parents about it my father was indignant, and insisted that I return the money, which I did. A painful but needed lesson at an age when morality is still incomplete.
I am so happy to see the word ‘moral’ being used to describe our political crisis. Our only hope at this point is to confront the moral barbarism that has taken over our social institutions. We are kept from using this language from bullies on both sides of the so-called left and right.
I am not for Romney. I am also a little torn in general about the idea of “dredging stuff up from high school”–the implication being that when running for office you are responsible for everything you have said and done since leaving the womb. To me that’s more of a canonization process than an election. It doesn’t allow for someone to grow, to learn from mistakes.
But to learn from mistakes you have to admit them.
I can’t forget the times I was bullied–the general fear that on the way home from school I was going to get my ass kicked. But even more unforgettable was the time when I decided on the spur of the moment to bully someone myself. I turned a softserve ice cream cone upside-down on the head of a kid whose older brother used to put the fear of god in me, and who himself used to hurl abuse at me when he was with his brother.
Romney is a liar if he says he doesn’t recall the incident. I would have more respect for the man if today he had a press conference and admitted that he remembered it, and that he wasn’t straightforward at first because he was ashamed of what he had done. And I don’t have a problem believing that it wasn’t a “homosexual”-inspired bullying, because bullies go after anyone who stands out.
Did you see the one about Romney disrespecting the cookies at a campaign picnic as unfit to consume? They were from a famous and well-beloved bakery in the town. But even if they WERE from 7-11, as he said they LOOKED like they were, he was a GUEST at a picnic, and only a real prick puts down his hosts like that. What if it was the BEST they could afford? Who acts that way? Even if you can look past the dog thing, there have been many final straws with this guy. He’s a heartless, gutless jerk.
I’m tired of the word “bully” because it sounds insignificant. What I endured in middle school and high school was not bullying, it was harassment and assault.
We’ve all done shameful things. Period. There are different degrees to the shameful things we’ve all done, of course — but to just wave a hand and say what he said was not only awful, he missed an opportunity to be a bigger person, and that’s too bad for him, because he seems like exactly the same guy he was. And that’s the point to remember. Thanks for the insightful article.
Even had Romney offered a sincere-sounding apology — no, even had he offered up the story himself before it came to light as a way of showing contriteness and of sharing something of his growth as a man — it would only have served to highlight the casual violence underpinning his unapologetic vision of America as being the world’s superpower by divine right, and his unrepentant place on its throne. We ignore so easily how much power our nation wields, how much force the president can unleash on our behalf (whether we like it or not) — from drones to ICBMs. We rely so heavily on this shield of power, and though we often toss stones at its unyielding surface, we still stand protected behind it. Leading the world is an act of violence, or at least a threat of violence. Republican, Democrat…Romney, Obama — this fact does not change. Empathy and compassion are there as well, but no one assumes the Oval Office without a fair amount of schooling in the effectiveness of harming others.
How can anyone ‘not find this relevant to the campaign’? Are you serious? Are you blind? It is so painfully relevant. A man who cannot admit the mistakes of his youth and cannot empathise with the people he hurt in the past will do nothing but bring pain and ruin to the office he seeks. We were taught these basic principles when we were young- to treat others with respect even if we don’t like them. Mitt Romney has no concept of respect, remorse, or shame. He is not the man for the job. He is not anyone’s man. And that is the most relevant fact of all.
my first day at a new school i got my ass kicked in the hallway while a hundred others blocked the way so no teachers could see. years later, the dude who beat me up apologized and my reaction was ‘fuck you.’ the apology was worse than the ass beating. not only did it bring up something painful, but it also made the whole act about HIM, again, showing how he was still so much better than me, and he could still wield power over me, although this time in a much different way. that was long ago, i don’t really think about it, it didn’t harm me any worse than any of the other tiny tragedies that happen during youth. don’t even remember dude’s name.
bulling is something that happens to all of us — on both sides. at one time or another the bully is the bullied. that said, i believe the author is judging harshly, especially in light of his own painful admission at being the bystander of an assault. i can’t judge the author’s junior high self for not intervening, neither can the author judge romney. so what if he doesn’t admit it? ten to one the memory is just as painful, though in a shaming kind of way, to him.
i remember what it was like to be a kid, i was vulnerable, had little self confidence and was thusly attracted to the wrong things. i wouldn’t want to be judged by the stupid things i did because i was an incomplete child nor do i harbor ill will towards the people who stepped on me. they were kids, like me, fucked in the head and that’s what happens in a society where the adults preach from on high one thing then stoop down to do the other.
I’m thinking right now of a different politician who had a shameful past–the great Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. In his youth, Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan. He later left that hateful organization, but he never denied his past. He denounced it repeatedly, in public, expressed remorse, and spent the rest of his career trying to make amends. I for one think he succeeded–he became one of the longest-serving Senators in American history, and did considerable good, in part by being a voice against racism who denounced his racist past. That’s what a great man does. He has the courage to own his mistakes. He does not pretend not to remember them or shrug off acts that caused great pain as mere “hijinks.” Romney had a chance to make a statement against bullying and to prove himself to be a man of courage, of character. He failed.
Good piece, but the word “deformity” tarnished it for me. Many (if not most) women don’t conform to Playboy anatomical standards. Certainly there is great shame attached to this for some, but the shame is perpetuated just as much by ill-informed, off-the-cuff statements like this as it is by people intending to humiliate.
I was one of those effeminate teens who was bullied in from fifth grade through Junior High and High School. But I have good news, when I first signed up on Facebook, the apologies came rolling in. You know what? Some of the bullies mentioned things I myself don’t remember, and I was the victim. Imagine that.
I found my own peace. I took an early morning paper route. I witnessed the worst of my bullies getting the crap beat out of him. His kicks and punches didn’t hurt me much after that, my compassion for his softened most of those blows. (It also helped that all the girls LOVED me!)
I don’t like Romney, but I’ll stick up for anyone, even if I don’t like them. So, what was going on at his house? Rich kids get beat too, maybe THAT’S what he doesn’t want to talk about.
A brave, perceptive piece. Full of the strength, wisdom, self-awareness and humility we’d like to see in someone running to be our president.
The number to remember is 13 million. Yes, 13 million children are bullied in this country every single year and the number is going up. Unless Mitt Romney is suffering from early dementia, I do not believe that he has forgotten what he did to the boy at school and the other so called “pranks” he was involved in. If he has forgotten, then we are looking at a man with absolutely no moral compass. Another thing to remember that of those 13 million children, many of them do not make it to adulthood as they take their lives, and many suffer the consequences of bullying the rest of their lives. Bullying does not allow a child to develop socially, many times it keeps them from attending school on a regular basis, small illnesses develop, they do not get to participate in the normal teenage functions, etc. On top of all this bullying affects the entire family, parents feel totally frustrated at being unable to help their children, school administrators in general lack sympathy, and most parents continue to hear the same “boys will be boys” or you can just substitute the word girl. From the story in the article, that boy who assaulted the young girl should have been charged with rape, because that is what he did to her. I am pretty sure she never quite got over that public humiliation. I can not in any good consious vote for a man who has no moral compass and seems to laugh at everyhing he did, “awe gee, it was 48 years ago and I can’t remember that” said Mr. Romney. If he can’t remember, then shame on him, and if he can remember, shame on him also. Mr. Romney it is time for you to pack your bags and go home. You may recognize that I am a parent of a child that was bullied from 8 years to about – well he is 35 now, married and has finally found some happiness. In between thee were school meetins, 504 civil rights lawsuits, the threat of being lit on fire, public humiliation and something that I as a parent still feel that I failed to protect my child, even though I was there for him every day (so was his father and brother). We never really figured out why he was chosen, he does have a neurological disorder, but for whatever reason a boy in elementary school chose him and it was as if our world came crashing down on us. By the way I do remember the boy’s name, and so does the rest of our family and we will remember as long as we are alive.
Beautiful essay. Pulls me in a lot of different directions. See:
I don’t need an apology from Romney; the person who did is now dead. But yes, I want Romney to be honest and regretful—because I value self-reflection and empathy in a leader. However, I can’t ignore the fact that a public apology could cost him the presidency. In a 24 hour news cycle, his apology could be what defines him.
And maybe it should be.
What bothers me most about his response is not the fact that he says he doesn’t remember it (i.e., the lie), but his wildly inappropriate tone. “…I played a lot of pranks in high school…”
What I take away from this in the end: Romney does not take serious things seriously.
An excellent article. All this recent talk about bullying, and now the Mitt Romney incident coming into the conversation, reminds me of what I went through in school, and saw others go through. It reminds me that things really were as bad as I thought they were (probably worse).
@El El Yarbrough
Thanks for putting into words the discomfort I still felt at making this so central to Romney’s deficiencies as a candidate for president. I think this piece is right on in so many ways; Romney keeps revealing his general lack of wisdom and maturity in large and small ways, and this essay describes his lack of compassion, and why it matters, very well.
Yet, I am reluctant also to judge primarily on someone’s past. The primary reason to reject Romney as a presidential candidate is the repeated clear evidence in his campaign that he has no understanding of what the recession / depression has done to the majority of people in this country, and that he favors both invasive legislating of a narrow, bigoted morality and a continued protecting of privilege for the rich. I am terrified as well to think of him as our representative on the world stage.
Almond is correct; empathy, compassion, humility are essential to good governing and to being a good citizen. But it has been clear for a very long time that Romney lacks empathy, compassion, wisdom, humility, and to some degree, basic competence at the public role of leadership. This incident may make some of us feel it more keenly, but even without it, it is clear from his campaign that his presidency would lead us back into economic depression and further inequality.
Um, guys, Almond is being sarcastic/speaking in the assailant’s voice about the girl’s supposed “deformity.” He’s not being literal. Please read a little more intuitively—
When do you think the Manchurian candidate is going to be vetted before the election or after his historic loss?
One of the proudest moments of my teaching career, more years ago than I care to talk about, was when we younger teachers, I was 24 at the time, banded together, quietly but effectively, to prevent a smart, athletic, wealthy, popular boy from being our representative in a foreign exchange program for a semester. Where the older teachers did not see through his brown nosing, the younger ones did, and also witnessed his intimidation of anyone not in his crowd or anyone from whom he knew he would get no resistance. He and his influential father were outraged when we chose a wonderful (yes, popular, smart and athletic, also) girl who went out of her way to treat everyone with respect, classmates and teachers alike.
When no one else was willing to sit down with the bully’s father, I volunteered. I explained to him that it had been a close race, they were both qualified, blah, blah, blah, but we had chosen her because of her compassion and accepting nature. That was not sufficient in his eyes, so I figured I had nothing to lose, I was pregnant and we were moving to another state the next year for my husband’s job. SOOOOO, I informed him of his son’s unacceptable behavior and offered to bring in witnesses and victims. Was he apologetic? No, he said that wasn’t the issue. (Like father like son.) I begged to differ and asked if he was not the least bit embarrassed. This time I was met by silence. When he again protested, I asked if this is behavior he would be comfortable with being witnessed by their pastor and his business associates. That seemed to do the trick.
Bottom line, these entitled people have to be stopped. When you are young, it is difficult to put yourself out there to be the one to stop it, but it is possible. My two children, now grown with wonderful children of their own, have both done it. They were among the social, athletic, academic elite at their huge high school, but never hesitated to step in with humor, tact, or physical/vocal intervention when someone was in a tricky situation.
Those not so accepted kids were also frequent visitors for BBQs, study sessions, or parties, mixing with those who may otherwise have dismissed them. The success they have both achieved in life means nothing to me compared to the people they have shown themselves to be. YOU, parents, open your eyes, be examples, teach your children that there ARE NO INCONSEQUENTIAL people in the world. Everyone deserves our support and help.
Gabby, gabby, gabby. But this is one of my hot buttons and when pushed,…. well you see what happens.
Thank you for this insightful article. As a mother, I ache to hold adolescent Tammy and comfort her. As a mother, I want to see Jim the molester prosecuted. Romney is also a parent; he has 5 sons. How would he have felt if one of them had been attacked and traumatized as Mr. Lauber was? Romney is STILL setting a poor example for his sons by not acknowledging the trauma he caused an innocent defenseless teenager. His lack of accountability indicates that Romney is not fit to lead the nation. Could we count on him to consider the trauma of war on American soldiers when he is blind to the harm he personally caused a fellow student? He has already shown an abuse of power and only offered an “I don’t remember” defense. America deserves better, much, much better.
To those troubled by “deformity,” my intention was to convey the brutal mindset of Jim. But I can see the confusion and have asked the Rumpus folks to reword the section in question. I apologize for causing offense — that was the opposite of my intention.
As for M. Givens, I have to agree with what you say here:
“It would be political suicide to get all sensitive and remorseful like Mr. Almond seems to suggest he should. Please, Americans don’t want that in their president.”
You have captured, more succinctly than me, what has become of our democracy. I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone, but I wonder, M. Givens, if there’s a child in your life that you love, and how you would feel about all this if that child had been attacked. Please don’t get defensive. I’m asking an honest question.
Please take into account the fact that when this happened, Romney was practically an adult. He wasn’t some kid in 5th grade. He was a High School Senior. When I was a senior, I wasn’t going around with my posse picking on underclass students, I was applying for college, taking my SAT’s and fretting what would come after high school. This should be taken into account. Romney is a bully who mistreated a gay kid. And soon he will be a bully who mistreats an entire class of people who he deems subhuman. People with that kind of psychosis don’t belong in the presidency.
Tried to post this response to Betsy yesterday but the site wouldn’t allow it. So here’s another try.
Betsy,
I don’t see my comment here anymore so I guess either the Rumpus editors deleted it or the Interwebs disappeared it. Was not unscathed in high school, actually. Was bullied beginning at the age of 8 and the bullying has continued off and on to this day. But my brother, who was struggling with the onset of severe depression at the age of 16 was bullied far more than I was. He was shy and did not defend himself. I tried to defend him without signalling to his bullies that I didn’t think he could take care of himself. Bullying, sexual assault, yep, both have happened to me. Never attempted to befriend the “biggest turds,” however, even though I knew this stance would leave me vulnerable. The vulnerable are the ones who need siding with, not the turds. I’d rather be victimized by bullies than be someone who condones their behavior. But yeah, others make other choices and some have no choice.
Melissa
Thank you for this piece. I think this part: “But there is something in his character that I am starting to get frightened about, an unwillingness, or an inability, to feel remorse, to simply own up to a moral failing, to apologize not just if “somebody was hurt†but because you know, deep down, that you hurt someone” is key.
Romney’s lack of empathy really is frightening. IThank you for writing this.
Very powerful….as tears slowly drip down my face in remembrance of the bullying I got as a kid, made me remember some things I forgot on purpose.
Extremely interesting comments, all passionate and obviously with much experience to go along with them. This is one of the most intelligent and thorough essays I have read, and I can see how controversial and accepted and at the same time misunderstood or unaccepted this article can be. I think he Bottom Line to this topic of bullying and the fact we have a presidential nominee being linked to said in his past…is simply that…All of us are responsible for our own actions. No other is responsible. Just us. And what we do or do not do and the effects from, again…something we each have to answer to, or at least carry within us, for however long, guilt or feelings of detachment, and in that lies the true character of our being….
Recently, a childhood friend from 40 years ago contacted me because she heard that my mother had just died. She was careful at first, but as we talked, she started admitting that she knew I was probably not grieving as much as she would. She talked about what she had witnessed, and how her parents had tried to get me away from my family as much as possible, and how horrible she felt one time when all she could do was run to our front closet and sit there in the dark waiting until it was over. We would have been about 8 at the time.
She told me that she became a nurse because she wanted to be able to help others instead of feeling helpless the way she did whenever she was at my home. She also told me that she raised her daughter to be the kind of person who would stand up and say something when she saw someone being bullied in any way….to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
That is how a decent and honorable person reacts.
Like Andrew Beierle, I first read this piece in a format where you weren’t identified as the author, and like him, I find it to be powerful. All of us have moments in our past — often from childhood and adolescence — where we wish we could go back in a time machine and undo our acts of moral cowardice. But feeling moral contrition and resolving neither to tolerate that kind of behavior nor to exemplify it again at least partially makes amends. A pity that Romney can’t even manage that.
My reading on the word “deformity” here is not that the author agreed with the perpetrator’s assessment of her body. Rather, i susoect that it was used to describe how the perpetrator was feeling around (so to speak) for something humiliating to say and that’s what he came up with…not just to hurt her by touching her in a unwanted way, but also to claim secret knowledge that she is somehow “built wrong”. Any body part can be called out as “deformed” by anyone with a desire to hurt. The reality of the average-ness of that part doesn’t enter into it. I think he was just giving a description of what the assailant was trying to do.
I read this with interest, but then again, I feel like we are missing the point. Steve Almond doesn’t want Mitt Romney to be president. I myself do not want Mitt Romney to be president. Does it have anything to do with how he treated people in high school and how he claims to not remember it?
For me, it doesn’t. The story feels like a distraction. If we spent nearly as much time discussing Romney’s views on the perpetual wars we engage in, or Romney’s views on other more pressing matters, I think that far more egregious lies could be uncovered.
Instead there’s discussion of how Romney was in high school, compared to how “we” were in high school, and we can say things like “a pity Romney can’t even manage that.” in reference to his lack of moral contrition.
Seriously?
If Romney becomes president we will have far more on our hands to deal with than whether or not he’s the kind of person who lies about the mean things he did to kids in high school. “Bullying” pales in comparison.
His inability to recognize his own faults and wrongs and/or his refusal to admit and apologize for them, mirror that of George W. Bush,who could never come up with an answer when asked about his mistakes or regrets. And look how that ended up. His presidency were among the most destructive, damaging and disastrous in our history.
Do we REALLY want even four years of a president like that?
This piece is not so much about Romney as about the lack of empathy which we see all the time in those who assume or take power into their hands, be it national, international or at the local level or even within our own families, and the great difficulty the rest of us have when it comes to dealing with this, and the adverse outcomes for so many people of this dynamic.
Alice Miller wrote about how, if as child, one is bullied or mistreated by parents, by society, and one is unable to resolve the situation, that suppression of one’s true feelings becomes a mechanism of psychic survival, and this leaves the feelings anger, grief and sadness still alive, yet masked, buried, hidden from awareness.
These hidden, buried feelings then start to colour how one behaves towards oneself and others. The anger can be directed against oneself (shame, self loathing) or against the next generation, or against one’s own children or against some ‘other’: the enemy ‘created’ by those in power as the receiver of these unresolved feelings, especially the anger and rage.
The problem is compounded by the fact that until these feelings are resolved, they remain alive within, and that even if a person acts out that anger, it will remain available for re-stimulation, again and again.
Alice Miller showed how this experience of mistreatment, abuse, trauma can become an intergenerational pattern, (the children of traumatised parents will grow up within that PTSD psychological environment, and whilst not all turn out with such adverse behaviours, many do, certainly enough to populate systems of power and oppression, to fill the ranks of armies and paramilitary groups) and others have written about Historical Trauma to show how any community that is traumatised can find itself traumatising it’s own children, or each other, in a cycle of abuse and neglect.
This is of akin to Lateral Violence, where violence erupts between those who have been subject to abuse from a more Powerful source which they cannot counter.
Others have shown how Power can utilise that distressed behaviour to lay blame on those who show the signs of distress in addiction, obesity, psychological distress, inability to conform to ‘standards’ – people who are used as examples of how not to behave in conformity with a fallen world.
This is a very large part of what drives politics and power.
The writers own admission and remorse is the healing of all this, and is the kind of response required to lead towards ending the intergenerational re-traumatising cycles.
It is based on self-empathy. For to feel the pain of another, beyond mere intellectual comprehension (compassion), is based on one’s own sense of pain. And to feel remorse for hurt caused, is to understand that the others pain is real and visceral; it is a living sensation that pain has the same effect on the other as it does to oneself, and that one would not wish that upon any other any more than one would wish it upon oneself.
Expecting those who seek Power to have empathy is folly. Recognising this, it becomes essential to heal this dynamic in oneself as a personal praxis and study of power and oppression, and where it truly matters and where it can be extended is at the grass roots, in one’s own life, one’s own family and one’s community.
If this can be done, then Power will find itself without the necessary accomplices, without which it cannot act.
From the comments, we can see that some people are yet willing to minimise what happened in Romney’s case as being in the past, as being high school bullying, as being minor in comparison to the larger issues. This is not the case. These events are linked in the lives of so many Power leaders, from the Kings of England, the Emperors of Rome, from Hitler to Stalin.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
This is why your countrymen and mine have and still are committing warcrims in Afghanistan and turn a blind eye to war crimes committed on civilians in other parts of the world. Wake up before it’s too late.
How will you react when your 16 year old relative is murdered by a drone while enjoying a bbq? Don’t think this can happen?
this was amazing. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. For your vulnerability in this. Yesterday I was at a community meeting and this twelve year old girl yelled at her perhaps 10 year old brother for telling on her. She said,”You motherfucker!” I told her not to talk like that. She said it doesn’t matter. I told her it did matter. That she mattered. That she was beautiful and perhaps smart and she should be using her mouth and her brain for other things. I should explain that this community meeting took place between poor and working class families in south L.A. and we were trying to get together to enforce a city ordinance on blighted homes that were owned by banks. In that small moment I wanted to blame the wealthy for blighted hearts too.
Not only is this an incredibly well written and heartfelt essay, but it gives my heart hope to read all the comments from readers.
I was beginning to think people didn’t “get it.” But I see that they do and it makes me cry with happiness.
This essay is a flaming arrow pointing straight at the ice-cold heart of America. Hope it hits its target.
My first reaction upon reading the story is that we shouldn’t judge someone for something that he did a lifetime ago without knowing how he feels about it today. Bullying and homophobia were par for the course at Cranbrook it seems. What matters, as you have so eloquently stated, is whether he is genuinely apologetic. I will say that EVEN IF he genuinely doesn’t remember, he could have apologized for his part in the assault, not dismissed it as a prank.
There is something fundamentally wrong when you take pleasure in hurting others no matter what age. It shows a lack of empathy and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad. But people change but something about his statements on the incidents creates some doubt about that. People want an honest leader.
In your article you did not mention that the names were changed so that the innocent victims were not re-victimized by the retelling of an incident that may be still painful to them or that you sought their permission to do so. Although Mr. Lauber is deceased, it may not have been an incident that he wanted shared with his family. I understand that you want to expose Mr. Romney’s character flaws, but I don’t feel you or anyone has a right to do this at the victim’s expense.
What’s even more pathetic about this situation is that Romney walked away unscathed, and Lauber was expelled shortly thereafter for smoking. Ah…the benefits of entitlement.
It’s pretty unfair to lob the lack of morals accusations at Bush and not Obama or Clinton, who have made similar heartless decisions. Bush even levied an extreme amount of money towards aid for Africa and other third world countries.
Let’s stop the pretend bi-partisan bullshit and say that ALL politicians, Republican and Democrat, often make decisions for their own good–whether it be financial or political. My biggest problem with the media and society in general is that we have somehow decided together that Obama is a saint for all mankind when in reality he is just as morally bankrupt as Romney, Bush, Clinton, etc etc etc.
I think what Romney did 50 years ago does matter. It is psychopathic behavior. His lack of remorse or empathy reinforces that diagnosis. That a psychopath would be a success plundering in the world of capitalism is not a surprise, they are drawn to it.
Furthermore, do we want a potential psychopath to have the newly minted to power to kill American citizens on his command at his disposal?
John – You all can nitpick as much as you want. The point is that a statement like the one that President Obama made – whatever it’s faults – will save lives.
I remember the statement that President Bush made from the White House, rife as it was with hate, about same sex relationships. He gave moral cover to all the gay-bashers and teen suicides. Like I said John, it’s easy to sit at home and post snide comments about other’s actions. But President Obama did a brave thing AND he was an astute politician. Some people are able to encompass more than one thing into their persona.
As for Governor Romney, many people here have already pinpointed the problem: it is a pattern of behavior, not the individual acts.
First, using a woman’s sexual assault (of which you were a part and about which you admitted doing NOTHING) to prove a political point is really shitty.
Second, that is NOT what adolescence is. It may be what your adolescence was, but being young isn’t an excuse to violate people and even if you didn’t know it, many young people know not to assault people.
What a shitty, shitty excuse.
Thank you for your essay…. have the same problem with how Mr. Romney acted in his answer to the question to the story, the chuckle and laugh was just not right! Anyone who would be confronted about that type of behavior would be ashamed not laugh about it.
I did not read the comments. I admire Steve’s writing exponentially.
However, I wish he would be a little gentler here. I think he makes a lot of assumptions.
“Like George W. Bush, he was an essentially frightened, unloved young man who came of age under tremendous pressure to live up to a famous father, who failed to distinguish himself as a scholar or an athlete and was relegated to the sidelines, whose desperate jocularity was shot through with a kind of unexamined sadism. Both men have forged a path to success via an alarming absence of self-reflection.”
That’s taking too many liberties with two men you’ve come to know solely through the lens of the public eye. You have no idea if either were “unloved” and I cannot accept the idea that both Bush and Romney have the “absence for self-reflection”. Sure, they’ve made decisions while in office that suggest the absence of self-reflection but this could be said of any president. Clinton cheated on his wife. Does that mean he has an “alarming absence of self-reflection”? Maybe so. Maybe not.
I don’t want to defend what Romney did in high school. However, high school is a twisted and vicious place where bad things happen. Maybe he has trouble expressing remorse. Or, maybe, when Romney lies in his hotel bedroom staring at the popcorn ceiling he thinks about what he did to that poor child and his stomach knots up and his eyes well and he reaches for his wife. Who knows. We’re all human.
What is troubling all these years later is the fact that Romney has either flat-out-lied about committing a premeditated act of violence meant to dehumanize a suspiciously effeminate kid or he truly doesn’t remember, which suggests a man who has yet to become an emotional adult. If he was twenty years younger, coming of age in a different decade, Romney and his friends could all have been charged with hate crimes. The attack left permanent emotional scars, as both the victim and Romney’s friends make clear. Everyone involved was haunted but Mitt.
So yes, it matters. And Steve’s honesty instructs me to write briefly of the most egregious example of my own moments of childhood cowardice. It involved a sexual assault on a girl from the neighborhood. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. I couldn’t have been more than ten. I don’t know how it started, but eventually she was on the ground under a copse of trees, her pants down, while three or four ten-year-olds tried to probe her vagina with sticks. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. I can say I didn’t hold her down. I can say I wasn’t helping to look for twigs or telling her to relax. My hands were not pulling open her labia. It doesn’t matter. I was there. Thirty years latter, I haven’t forgotten much about those 15 minutes. They are with me all the time.
Like most kids, I found myself on both the giving and getting ends of “teasing.” I was teased for being poorer than the other girls, for being Catholic, and for having an always pregnant mother who sent me to school with slimy booger sandwiches (avocado) when ham and cheese were de rigueur.
But I was no angel, well versed in lord of the flies tactics (from a family of ten) I gave as good as I got at home. And while I was never the instigator in schoolyard terrorism, my cowardly acquiescence made it possible.
An adolescent’s sole objective is to avoid humiliation, which leads those with nascent morality, riotous hormones and undeveloped frontal lobes to act out their worst nightmares, or to stand by and watch as they are enacted on their peers.
Given what we know today about the limitations of the teen brain, I question dredging up anyone’s adolescent lapses and cruelties as a measure of their adult self. Is it even possible an adult exists who doesn’t cringe and regret behaviors of their youth? Weren’t we all idiotic?
Rather than the misdeeds of our youth, perhaps it is how our adult self remembers that is the truer test of our character?
2000 years ago Jesus said something like if anyone is free of sin cast the first stone, and today I can say that only those kids from a good family that were working pretty hard did not comite these kind of crimes because their mind and bodies are working different unless they are criminals and want to dedicate their lives to crime, is a matter of hormone balance and also something wrong in our education that happens in cities with different classes where our lives lack of reality, we live in an imaginary theoretical world and don’t behave right specially if your life at home is far from a family life missing the love of your relatives. So the type of crime you commit doesn’t matter the revelious part shows up in any way.
A slow long clap for this essay. Well done.
Damn. Anymore, if Steve Almond speaks, I just listen. Thanks.
A well written piece, no doubt. It speaks to character. And I agree that a person seeking this position of advantage/power/whatever, should bear some semblance of good character for the benefit of all who elevate him to such a position. So its a piece that is looking for its legs, traction. It’s a question to be raised, and in a better society would be a seed in fertile ground. Yet here we are in America where people like M Givens proposes that we buck up and accept falsely, that the man currently in office is of the same character, and that the candidate simply has no option other than to be a cold hearted bastard so as not to derail his ambitions. All the while admitting that Romney was most likely a prick in his younger years. Its sad sauce that you my friend are stirring.
I love this piece. I was bullied pretty badly in high school, but I can recall moments of my own cruelty just as vividly, and over 30 years later I still feel awful about it. I also stood by passively as I watched others get bullied and assaulted – though usually I was terrified of being the next victim and so didn’t interfere: a mixture of outrage and fear and helplessness that I can still taste.
Romney’s past doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, nor does his reaction: he is after all a moral cipher. It’s got me thinking a lot about bullying – and by coincidence it’s blown up at the same time as we are dealing with my son’s being bullied – and being accused of bullying.
It’s starting to feel like a pandemic: I was bullied in a conference call today. The parents of the some of the schoolmates who’ve bullied our son have bullied my wife and me. I know the casual sadism, the petty tyranny has been there all along, but it feels like it’s spreading. To those who say ‘that’s not what adolescence is’ I can only respond, well, maybe not yours, but it was mine, and it was that of a lot of people I know.
I have never been very good at trying to understand them (I still can’t understand why I was ever cruel, though it was never in the wholesale fashion of a true bully), and while on the one hand I can in the abstract support the notion that we need to understand them and reach out to them and work with them to change their behavior, mostly I just want to smash every last little vicious nasty one of them.
So if we elect Romney, are we a nation of sadists, or of masochists, or of something worse?
“An adolescent’s sole objective is to avoid humiliation, which leads those with nascent morality, riotous hormones and undeveloped frontal lobes to act out their worst nightmares, or to stand by and watch as they are enacted on their peers.”
So if this wasn’t my experience — if my experience was to endure bullying and attempt to comfort the bullied — what these means is that I should be bullied further for not having condoned bullying?
And to be bullied here, no less. In a comments section featuring the reflections of good country people? Well god bless America!
Or I should have shut up then and I should shut up now. Because keeping quiet is polite, as polite as remaining silent while nonviolent people get kicked in the teeth by bullies.
I am beginning to see the light.
The quote is from Teresa’s comment, BTW — not from Steve Almond.
…roughly one in every one hundred humans is a full-fledged psycopath (Robert Hare, Without Concience,1995))…it is far more common among males…and the percentage of them is higher in corporations, where the attributes of psycopaths are highly valued (Snakes in Suits,2006)…if one believes in God (one that is omniscient and omnipotent, and that fits the definition of “psychopath”), it would make a lot of sense that God made man in his image, but only one in every hundred of us…precisely what we should expect a religious psycopath to believe (David Stamos-Postmodernism, Morality,and God, 2011). Now there is a dangerous pattern….
If it is true that Romney led or even participated in this act, then his disavowal certainly reflects badly on his character. Perhaps he was a self deceptive, insecure, narcissistic, juvenile ass. Perhaps he still has a shallow personality, and lacks the ability to look inside himself with enough courage to face his faults and own up to them, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone with open eyes finds him worse than Clinton, with his oval office lap dancing (anyone yet know what the meaning of ‘is’ is?), or Obama, who is the living embodiment of narcissistic arrogance – both of whom have displayed this behavior as adults (Presidents, no less) without any remorse. Bush was dangerously imbecilic, but only an amateur narcissist (lacked the neurotic depth).
God (gaia, krishna, oprah – whatever floats you) help us all in November. I will again mark the box for ‘lesser of evils’.
@Marite – the kind of person who does what Romney is accused of doing isn’t self-deceptive, insecure, narcissistic, juvenile, or shallow. They’re sadistic and cruel. And don’t compare him with Bush: we haven’t seen President Romney – yet.
Marite – I am so sorry. That is a terrible way to live…feeling like that all the time.
Bruce – all ‘sadistic’ or ‘cruel’ behavior is rooted in the actual mental state of the individual at the time of the behavior. In adolescence, this can be a transitory situation. When the same behavior is exhibited in adults, it has become an intrinsic part of a persons’ way of relating to the world and is very unlikely to change. This is why we correctly give juvenile criminals a break and have to essentially throw the key away for some adults.
Rod…feel like what kiddo? a realist? These men as human beings are certainly worthy of respect within other areas of their lives, and they very likely are wonderful fathers/sons/etc. My assessment only pertains to their actions as leaders of the country where I, my friends and family spend our lives… certainly a good enough reason to me for looking closely at their way of interacting with the world around them. It is dangerous to be blind to the fact that external behavior always comes from the internal mental state. As for a terrible way to live…well, you haven’t tasted the blueberries and figs on our farm!
No one would condone the grotesque sexual assaults described above. Do keep in mind those had nothing to do with Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney may have been an asshole when he was a kid; many kids are assholes; too bad but that’s life. I am sure Romney regrets the hair cutting incident, just as many of us regret mistakes we have made. But it was 50 years ago, and he cannot apologize to the dead man now; then again maybe he DID apologize to him before he died – we will never know and it is none of our business.
Mr. Romney isn’t perfect but neither is the writer or any of the commenters, or Romney’s political opponents, etc. The Romney of 50 years ago is totally irrelevant to the race for president today. If you would like to judge Mr. Romney please do so here publicly: write that you are better than he is, and that you are without fault, and that you go around looking to spill your guts about the mistakes you have made in your past.
Maybe he apologized? Romney doesn’t even remember the incident, remember? That isn’t my guess; that’s what the man said himself. Listen, I don’t mean to insult you Wooly Bully (I really don’t), so instead I will suggest that a lack of empathy is very fashionable these days and there are far more people like you than those of us who see a connection between whom one was then and whom one is now. You are in vogue and the rest of us are hopelessly out of sync with the Zeitgeist. So you have that….I suppose.
I would not believe every word out of a politician. If Mr. Romney apologized and said so publicly, and the man is not alive to confirm that he did, those who hate Romney (such as Rod above) would not believe him. He had no choice but to say he can’t remember the incident. Also he was correct to say he did not remember it because it has no relevance, whether he apologized or not! Those who hate Romney (such as Rod above) will never understand or admit this fact.
Once again I invite those who think they are better than Romney, and who think they are without fault, to say so here publicly and to spill their guts about their past mistakes that they regret. Please use your real name and post a photo of yourself and tell us some wrong doings you did in your past that you are ashamed of doing. I made the challenge 6 days ago and thus far there has not been a single response.
Not a single response to my challenge above! Perhaps this article is too old and not read much now.
Thus, I present a challenge to those who run therumpus.net: Write an article and ask your readers who think they are better than Romney, and who think they are without fault and want to judge him, to spill their guts publicly about their past mistakes. Please ask the readers to use their real name and post their photo and tell us the most shameful things they did in their past. Perhaps this challenge can be used to show that one side of the political divide is morally superior to the other. To assist in that, please indicate your political party.
This could be bigger than Facebook!
I await, patiently.
One more thing, I suggest that the writer Steve Almond should be the one to write the article I am suggesting. He appears to think he is morally superior to Romney, and is judging him publicly, so I also suggest that Mr Almond be the first to present his most shameful acts to the public, complete with his photo, and his political party.
Again, I await, patiently.
Thank goodness he left the presidential stage. If not I was going to recommend bringing this excellent essay out again.
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