Hasn’t anyone on the president’s campaign team read his autobiography? I mean, I know the president has, when he read it while moving his lips, but he probably only read it that one time, so he’s probably forgotten most of what’s in it by now.
39 thoughts on “Dreams Of The Girl I Bullied”
Comments are closed.
Guys (and the esteemed Andrea).
This matter is not a joke, and it has nothing to do with a person being gay or straight, male or female, with a preference to wearing their hair long or short.
There are also hazing rituals taking place with varying degrees of consent of the person being hazed. From the account, this was taking place without consent.
Let me give you another angle on this. After I participated in the graduation ceremony on the lawn in front of Beckman Auditorium to receive my Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering, none other than Professor Richard Feynman made a bee line for me, shook my hand, and told me “congratulations!”
I ask Mom what that was all about. Mom told me, “The faculty may know much more about the goings-on at their institution and about the lives of their students than you may think.”
See the thing is, my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering says “Northwestern University” on it. I spent one term not at Northwestern as an undergraduate, but lets just say that in addition to the prank culture of changing the famous “Hollywood” hillside sign to read “Caltech”, there was also a pretty intense hazing tradition at the other place that gets less public attention.
Without going to a lot of details, let us just say that we each come from our own collections of life experiences forming our opinions and judgements. In my opinion, what is described, ambushing someone with multiple guys taking on one guy to restrain him, and then clearly doing something against his will, I don’t care if it is cutting his hair, forcing him into the showers to wet him down with his clothes on, painting his face red, and I don’t know if anyone here is willing to share any personal experience of the profound sense of helplessness and violation that engenders, and maybe this is just my perspective, but in my opinion it is one step removed from gang rape.
If young W. Mitt Romney, as a guy, “took on” another guy so as to cut his hair, maybe, just maybe, I could buy into the excuses or explanations offered. But Mr. Romney went at his fellow student with a posse — one guy is usually not enough to restrain another guy in this way without handcuffs the way the police do when they have to. From the standpoint of male honor and taking someone on in a fair fight, the proported action was dishonorable.
Rand, are you drawing some equivalence between President Obama writing about callously “dumping” his girlfriend by not choosing to call on her as recounted in “Dream of My Father” with the current account alleging Governor Romney at high-school age instigating a gang assault on one of his peers?
As to it “a long time ago” and “it was only high school”, I am a one-time resident of Bloomfield, MI and thoroughly familiar with the reputation of Cranbrook Academy and the socio-economic stratum it and peer high schools serve. A student in Cranbrook Academy has a pretty good idea that they want to run for President of the United States at that age because they are already participating in high-school debate tournaments where they are carrying around cases full of research materials on what they are going to say to explain their position on a topic of public interest.
Mr. Romney, you have a whole lot more ‘splainin’ to do.
You overstate this as badly as those who tried to make a big deal about Romney carrying his dog on top of his car 29 years ago. Romney admits that when he was a teenager in high school, he pulled pranks. Some may say they were more than pranks and crossed the line to hazing. In short, he may have been something of an asshole when he was a teenaged boy. Gee, what a shock, a teenaged asshole! Who could imagine such a thing! [/sarc]
In the meantime, while the Press is digging up 29 year old dog stories and prank/hazing stories from 1965 about Romney, they have yet to show the slightest interest in investigating the background of one B. Obama, currently living in Washington DC and reapplying for his current job as president. All this digging into Romney’s background while ignoring Obama’s proves is that the Press is failing to do its job of informing the public. It’s hard to conceive of any other reason than media bias in favor of Obama.
God forbid that my entire life would be judged based on minor incidents that happened decades ago. Teenaged boys can and often are assholes (and teenaged girls can be even worse). It’s what they grow into that counts. By most all accounts, Romney has grown into a responsible, hard-working man. Can the same be said of Obama? To me, he still is an asshole. In my years in the military, I learned that no one racial or ethnic group cornered the market on assholes. I admit to being an equal opportunity bigot against assholes regardless of their race, creed, religion, nationality or sex. Pardon my language, but an asshole is an asshole and deserves to be called such even if (especially if!) he happens to be President of the United States.
Look friend, if you read what I wrote, you would see that I am saying that I am “that dog.” The dog doesn’t write blog posts or talk to other people or give interviews, and I can and most certainly will. I wan’t hazed by Mr. Romney personally, but bet on it that this is not the last people are going to hear from me on this subject.
Answer me this. Have you been “piled on” by a bunch of guys who were going to do something to you because they felt like doing it, and you were without your own bunch of guys, not even one, who were going to fend them off? Being on the receiving end of this kind of thing is on the level of what we do to the folks at Camp X-ray, who in my book are deserving of whatever they get, but not some dude who offended Mr. Romney’s sensibilities by wearing his hair too long at Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield, Michigan.
A students at Cranbrook who later in life decides he wants to be President is not some mouth-breathing jock who likes to bully people by pulling “wedgies.” These students are at the same level as the kids at New Trier, Evanston, and Maine Township high schools in suburban Chicago (think Secretary Clinton out of Maine Township in Park Ridge, Illinois, think Donald Rumsfeld out of New Trier in Winnetka).
I have competed in High School Debate with this general group, and if you encountered any whom you think are “teen-aged punks”, you will encounter remarkable young people with their political and social skills already formed who have already mapped out where they want to be in 40 years.
Look, I know, I know, the Main Stream Media in Mr. Obama’s corner, and all of that, and yes, these charges may yet be disproved. But one, this is a serious, serious matter that speaks to character if true, a character that is fully formed by teen age (we are talking Cranbrook Academy, folks, not the “hoods” at Ridgeway High). Look, people, no one around here wanted Mitt Romney from Day 1, and here is a chance for your Open Convention.
I have been bullied and been a bully. It is ludicrous to hold someone as old as Romney or Obama for actions that took place while in highschool. There is a reason that people under the age of 18 are considered minors and when they commit a crime are treated as children and not adults. Often, people’s disciplineary records from their youth are sealed because no one should face a lifetime of punishment for something they did as a child.
We don’t know if this story is true and we certainly don’t know that if this event happened that Romney thought the kid was gay. Considering the gravity of these allegations, it is of the utmost importance not to try and destroy someone’s reputation based on a rumor from 30 or 40 years ago.
If there was a culture of hazing at your school, the child Romney is not to blame, the adults who enabled it are.
Paul, there is a profound reason why we separate majors from minors. You don’t seem to have gotten the memo. I remember certain girls that teased me without mercy when I was in grade school. Meeting them later when we were all more mature they treated me as their long lost friend. It was weird, but that’s when I came to realize that maturity can have such affects.
I was bullied as a child. Hell, I had 3 older brothers. It came with the territory and the times. I grew up and got over it. It sounds like you need to do the same.
While Obama’s background is almost a complete mystery, I’m supposed to care about things Romney allegedly did as a teenager? While Obama is spending the country into backrupsy, I’m supposed to care that Romney might’ve been a bully over 45 years ago? Really?
There is such a thing as redemption. Many people do stupid and sometimes even cruel things when they’re younger. If they carry those actions into their adult lives, then that would be an issue. If they don’t, then it indicates they’ve learned and matured. Is there any evidence that Obama has matured from being an asshole?
Furthermore, it seems some reporters are finding serious inconsistencies in the Washington Post article, making it look like a partially fabricated hit piece.
Another Post inconsistency appears through witness Stu White (emphasis added):
“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.”
After nearly 50 years, Stu White only heard of the Lauber incident a few weeks before the Post contacted him for his impressions of it. Yet “investigative journalist” Jason Horowitz does not ask the basic journalistic question of “who” told Stu White of the incident–and “why” suddenly now, after 50 years. Does WaPo just dismiss this as miraculous coincidence?
Isn’t that perhaps the most crucial element to the Post story–the question of why Obama’s epic same-sex marriage announcement seemed to have been timed so precisely with someone tipping off Stu White after 50 years, and with the Post’s publication of its gay-bullying hit piece on Romney? White’s anonymous informant and the Post’s piece seem hardly coincidental.
And while I’m supposed to care that Romney might’ve been a bully almost 50 years ago, I guess I’m supposed to overlook the bullying tactics of the Left agains those on Obama’s enemies list.
Frank VanderSloot is the CEO of Melaleuca Inc. The 63-year-old has run that wellness-products company for 26 years out of tiny Idaho Falls, Idaho. Last August, Mr. VanderSloot gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC that supports Mitt Romney.
Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, “Keeping GOP Honest,” took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney. Titled “Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,” the post accused the eight of being “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.” Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being “litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”
About a week after that post, a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot’s divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.
Mr. Wolf sent a fax to the clerk’s office—which I have obtained—listing four cases he was after. He would later send a second fax, asking for three further court cases dealing with either Melaleuca or Mr. VanderSloot. Mr. Wolf listed only his name and a private cellphone number.
Some digging revealed that Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He’s found new work. The ID written out at the top of his faxes identified them as coming from “Glenn Simpson.” That’s the name of a former Wall Street Journal reporter who in 2009 founded a D.C. company that performs private investigative work.
Which reminds me of my fifth grade teacher in Parkland WA. She was the younger (but still old) of the Blandau sisters, the other taught 2nd grade. We were way up on the second floor (the old brick school building only had the two.)
One day a kid came in with hair too long for her (this was the late sixties.) She hung him out the window to show him where the barber shop down the street was. It was shocking. It was funny. It was what went on in the sixties. You remember the sixties? Well, then you weren’t there they tell me.
This matter is not a joke,
You are right. The Washington Post told a story about an act performed to a guy now dead. A guy who can no longer defend himself from this claim. A claim that his survivors claim didn’t happen to their knowledge or at least inaccurate. To what level, we don’t know, and we can’t know because the guy is dead.
You know what makes hazing bad? It dehumanizes a person. Do you know what is truly humiliating about hazing? Others talking about it over and over and the victim still unable to defend themself.
I think this story is actually the set-up for the “October Surprise”, a devastating hit piece on Romeny, that shows, conclusively, that he did, undeniably, pick his nose while in kindergarten.
Shocking.
Okay, seriously, we see that Romney did a pretty bad thing while in high school by cutting that kid’s long hair. Fair enough, but come on, high school?
Interesting that this, along with the story of Romney’s arrest for disorderly conduct in 1981, is coming out now. What’s even more interesting is that these stories are actually countering the meme that Romney is “dull” and “Milqtoast”.
BTW, in case anyone hasn’t heard, Romney’s 1981 arrest was shocking and scandalous; he was arrested for putting his boat in WATER! Who knew you could do that with a boat???
Well, Obama went to a rascist church for two decades, used and likely sold cocaine and refuses to release his transcripts or any of his writings from college.
But by all means lets talk about some mild hazing that makes what goes on during your average military basic training look like a ladies social.
“Answer me this. Have you been “piled on” by a bunch of guys who were going to do something to you because they felt like doing it, and you were without your own bunch of guys, not even one, who were going to fend them off?”
Did it and had it done. Indian burns, dutch rubs and the like. It was called high school, we did it to each other but then again, we were boys being allowed to become men then. Nobody got really hurt.
You know what we didn’t do Paul? Cocaine!
That’s a curious comment. To the extent that Obama “did” cocaine, it was about him and him only. To the extent that Romnibus tackled, held down, and sheared a terrified student, that’s quite another thing. I guess if Romney sheared his own hair, or just pulled it out, we wouldn’t be quite as upset.
To the extent of whether the story is true at all and whether something that happened almost 50 years ago is of any signficance what so ever, you have a point.
However, the story has some serious holes and, quite frankly, I rarely judge a grown man by what he did decades ago in high school. That goes for Obama’s drug use as well. Since Obama refuses to release his medical or college records, it does give the impression that he has something to hide. Funny how the Press will dig into Romney’s high school experiences from 1965 but shows an amazing lack of interest in looking at Obama’s background even over the past decade. Smells quite like bias to me.
Hey, how come Romney was an Adult and Treyvon was a Child?
^^^ Thread Winner
It’s the hoodie paradox.
Interestingly enough, the hit piece on Romney attacks him from the standpoint of race, class, religion, and gender mostly tangently with Rommey being portrayed as guilty for the actions of others. It is like OWS wrote the story.
Also, burried in the story is the admission that Rommey himself was bullied because of his name and religion.
One wonders why this story only surfaced now that Romney is the defacto nominee.
Proabally because he is like 5 points up over Obama on Rasmussen today Wodun and almost breaking 50%
“This matter is not a joke,..”
In fact it’s a total joke.
First off there are already cracks in the story. But let’s stipulate that it’s all true….
If the high school story of every presidential candidate were revealed, and if it mattered, then no one would be elected dog catcher. Youth is designed for being really stupid and, if you live, learning something. The process is called “maturation”.
Ever hear of that?
I bet everyone has memories of things they did as a “yout” that they are embarrassed about…even you Paul. Maybe even acutely embarrassed.
Yes, there are numerous things I did for which I am acutely embarrassed or regret or would seek forgiveness for.
But if I were called out for having perpertrated that level of human cruelty, if I had been the leader of the pack in that incident, I hope that I would own up to what I had done and understand it as a bit more than boys-will-be-boys-pranking-around.
Mr. Romney hasn’t denied anything, simply cast it in not being “anti-gay” (and I sincerely believe him, if you are late-maturing heterosexual you get dumped in the same “sissy bin” as being gay), and done the full Schwartzenneger of “can’t remember that incident, but boys were boys back then and goofed around.”
But if there was anything I was in my youth, I never, ever ground out a cigarette in the dorm carpet as a contemptuous expression of being cool either.
Mitt may or may not have cut a hippy’s hair when he was all of seventeen (evidently the story is full of holes and the “victim” never even thought as much of the issue as to tell his own sister, but don’t let that stop you, Paul) .
Barry is busy wrecking this country RIGHT NOW…
…and guess which one Paul is most upset about.
Seriously, if this is the worst thing they can throw at Romney it shows how little they really have.
If the high school story of every presidential candidate were revealed, and if it mattered, then no one would be elected dog catcher.
Except in the case of Barack Obama, who might make an excellent and well-motivated dog catcher…
The amazing part of this is that the Dems think Romney is supposed to explain things he did as 17 or 18 year old.
But that idiot in the WH doesn’t explain how he missed 20 years of anti-American, socialist sermons that we can all hear online and he was supposedly in the front row. Nor does he explain who his classmates were in college, HS, grade school, or if he was a practicing Muslim in Indonesia.
He won’t explain knowing Bill Ayers, when Ayers openly says they were not just neighbors.
He won’t say why we’ve not had a budget during his entire tenure as POTUS. Nor does he explain why his DOJ let the Panthers go even though there was video of their voter intimidation crime(s).
He can’t explain ‘shovel ready jobs’ not being ready, nor can he explain where ALL the money went FOR those jobs. Nor can he explain the Solyndra email debacle.
But Romney acting like a jerky, rich kid, when he WAS still a kid is THE issue we are supposed to key in on for the election, because Obumble has flip flopped BACK to supporting Gay Marriage. If, that ism it ever really happened.
I’ve got a question. Has ANYONE found this poor, bedraggled and follicley abused man? What’s HIS take on this? Where is this guy? If this is such a well known event, where are the co-conspirators? Where’s anyone who saw this?
What a crock of cr@p!
I hope the American voters are not stupid enough to fall for this kind of campaigning. But I fear that even those who voted FOR the Marriage Amendment here in NC, will vote FOR this lying, shifty clown even after he’s flopped again on the issue.
Exit polls showed that 2/3 of African-Americans voted FOR the Marriage Amendment here in NC on Tuesday. But I don’t see them thinking it through and voting against BHO in November based on the vote.
The truth of the matter is, they agree with Romney more than they do Obama, but they’ll never vote for the NON-black guy.
I had a thought, maybe Romney told this story, but it’s a ‘compression’ of things that he heard about or saw. But he told the story to flesh out what the school was like when he was there. You know, to show what it’s like to be a rich, white kid growing up in America, a level of suffering poor blacks can never understand.
I may go puke, right after I check all my guns again to be sure they’re still loaded. ’cause were going down, and soon IMHO.
Obama doesn’t have to explain any of that because shut up.
I shoved a girl and I liked it…
Well, we can all be thankful that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t running this time.
I’d imagine that this story has every Aggie cadet collectively face palming.
Yep. By my team, quadding was out, but swirlies were in. Getting a short haircut was mandated from the top down, as well as the financial hazing of paying for mandated haircut each week. But hey, that’s are modern academic environment. Physical hazing bad, Financial hazing good. That one haircut will have far less damaging aspects than the 5 to 6 digit student loan debt.
Ack…
Face palming on my own post.
I could do worse.
In socialist nations, the future is certain — it’s the past that’s always changing.
When you were young and dumb, you were young and dumb. That’s why they call it young and dumb.
If this is all the Obamaoids have, they are in deep, deep trouble. Cheers –
There’s a bully that has millions of armed minions and claims the right, not only to take as much of our lunch money as it wants, but kill us if we resist. It’s called “the State.” And yet “liberals” and “progressives” love that bully, and cheer it on. In fact, when that bully says “Bend ’em and spread ’em,” they only ask, “How low and how wide?”
I wouldn’t be surprised if, after the bullying incident described in Obama’s autobiography, the young Kenyan lad’s beloved Uncle Frank (i.e., “Frank the Red”) took him aside and said, “Now, Barry, what you did wasn’t very smart. If you REALLY want to be a bully–and bully millions of people legally–become a statist like me!”
And furthermore . . .
http://rightwingnews.com/john-hawkins/the-top-10-things-obama-may-have-been-doing-while-mitt-may-have-been-being-a-jerk-in-high-school/
“I feel like [Barack Obama] is raising ugly insinuations and I think he is doing it because he doesn’t want to talk about what is happening to Americas families.”
The WaPo’s story is unraveling quickly, and the local talk shows are all about the massive cancellation of WaPo subscriptions. It sounds like they’re taking an extremely serious hit for this. But as part of the B-Ho reelection campaign team, they will probably be rescued by some well-heeled heel like George Soros.
It appears as if there is some collusion taking place between the media and the Obama campaign. Which would be fine if they were up front about it. Much like political ads have to say who payed for the piece, “news” articles should also have a disclaimer.