Mitt Romney Bullying: Classmate Says High-School Behavior Was Like 'Lord Of The Flies'

[Grassy Knoll]

Source: huffingtonpost

An anonymous former high-school classmate of Mitt Romney's told ABC News on Thursday that many fellow students have "really negative memories" of the Republican presidential candidate, and that his behavior during those years was "like
'Lord of the Flies.'"

The interview came on the heels of a Washington Post report that detailed Romney's behavior as a student at the Cranbrook School, a prestigious institution in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. In the article's most explosive revelation, multiple classmates of Romney's recall how he led a group of students that forcibly cut the hair of John Lauber, a student who was thought to be gay.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/mitt-romney-bullying-lord-of-the-flies_n_1507757.html

[Brooklyn Dame]

1. Before Seamus...

He was a spoiled, bratty, mean, homophobic rich kid destined to head towards Wall Street. Real leadership material!

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/04/bullying-not-just-a-lesson-for-kids/

[Kingofalldems]

2. Has Mr. Lauber been found to comment on this?

[indie_voter]

3. He died in 2004 n/t

[crayfish]

5. How ...er, 'convenient'

grrrrrrr

[groundloop]

19. Convenient for whom?

As far as understanding the kind of person Mitt rMoney is, the death of his bullying victim, in this case, is irrelevant. There were 5 separate, independent accounts given of the incident and they were all identical. We're getting a clearer picture of what's in Mitten's soul, and it's not pretty.

[thucythucy]

4. He died of cancer

in 2004.

[freshwest]

8. No, he can't. We already know some of the Romney Body Count at Bains, now the rest will come out.

No doubt there were other victims whose lives he made miserable while 'just having a little sport.' How many of those whose businesses, jobs, communities and health care were stolen by Romney are now dead?

When Kenny Lay's ENRON screwed their employees, some died from lack of health care because their 401Ks were gone, along with their life savings and pensions.

All of the human costs of corporate looters must be factored into how much credit we give their capacity to govern.

Behind every great fortune there is a great crime. ~ Honore de Balzac (?)

[Auntie Bush]

22. Mitt is just another Chainsaw Al...maybe even worse. He tried to keep it a secret.

But, the secrets are coming out...not a minute to soon.

[BadtotheboneBob]

6. Wait a minute, wait a minute...

... Come on, folks. That was high school and has no more bearing on the man now as Obama's admitted drug use when he was younger does to him today. There's enough to go on against Mitt as an adult as it is. This is non-starter.

[siligut]

7. It is another indicator of his character. nt

[kestrel91316]

9. RW meme FAIL. It speaks to his underlying character.

Enjoy your stay.

Are you unaware that personal recreational drug use is a victimless "crime"? How can you possible compare it to CRIMINAL ASSAULT AND A HATE CRIME?????????

[MrSlayer]

10. I think it shows a behavior pattern.

Obama didn't continue to use drugs throughout the rest of his life. Romney, on the other hand, did continue bullying his way through life and still does today. He's a punk and a coward and has no problem with hurting his "lessers". Past is prologue in this case.

[Grassy Knoll]

11. Who said political bashing was PC ?

Dems for too long let the CONS get away with this, not saying it's mature, But dems
are starting to throw baby caca back in their faces, and it has them on their heels.

[creeksneakers2]

23. The Republicans recently smeared Obama for eating dog meat

Obama was six at the time and living in a culture where others did the same. When the GOP attacked Obama, they didn't mention he was six at the time.

[DeSwiss]

12. I totally disagree.

In fact I would say that such an attitude demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what constitutes an indicator of a person's basic character traits and that it is largely the reason why our legislatures and leadership positions in this country are filled to the brim with narrcisstic socipaths and tea-bagging crackpots, this very day.

[Major Hogwash]

13. This is the worst thing I have ever heard about Mitt the Shit.

There is absolutely no excuse for bullying, not after the 6th grade!!
I knew the difference between right and wrong by the time I was 12 years old!!

This is a huge character defect for Romney. And he has used his size, and his money, to throw around his weight all of his life.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

14. When Mitt flew to Vegas to give a big, sloppy kiss to Trump & birtherism, his youth became fair game

If Mitt thinks it's fine and dandy to spread lies and B.S. about President Obama's birth, then the media has every right to look into far more factual info about Mitt's teenage years.

It's too late for Mitt to call for the campaign to take the high road - he's already been rolling in the gutter with folks like Trump and Nugent.

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. Let's see, Obama admits...while Mitt denies remembering a vicious attack and then apologizes IF

he hurt anyone. I see a difference, don't you?

Mitt, as an adult, should know how to respond. He does not. That says a lot to me.

[groundloop]

21. Exactly. He doesn't have the ability to stand up and simply say "I screwed up"

ALL he'd have had to do is say the words "I shouldn't have done that and I'm ashamed of it" and this would be well on the way to being put behind him. But rMoney's arrogance keeps him from admitting he did anything wrong.

[TBF]

17. Nice try. FAIL. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. Thank you for your concern. nt

[Skittles]

24. are you still here????

you are not fooling anyone

[BadtotheboneBob]

25. Sure... Why not?

...amd what does that mean?

[lunatica]

27. It means you're not fooling anyone

feigning innocence isn't either.

[BadtotheboneBob]

29. Thanks!

That certainly clears it up...

[Skittles]

36. dittomasters assume their fans are idiots

so it's a learned behavior

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

32. Maybe "High School Bullying" is a new litmus test for Prez

And I wonder how past presidents would have been classified if their high school experience was opened. It could be a good drinking game: Bully or Bullied?

I can just imagine LBJ responding to this accusation: "Yeah. So what?"

[coalition_unwilling]

33. I beg your pardon. Obama's drug use arguably hurt no one but himself. Romney, otoh,

committed felony assault with a deadly weapon (scissors) on a fellow human being. Shame on you for suggesting the two events are similar.

[snooper2]

34. are you bad to the bone in real life?

Or just online LOL

Maybe it's the song?

[treestar]

39. Drug use is no where near as bad as assaulting another person

Rmoney was offended by hair length and tried to force his views on another person.

[polichick]

42. What?! Drugs are done to oneself; assault is done to another.

[daaron]

15. This story just gets worse and worse!! (For Mittens, I mean.) nt

[cap]

18. You can't run a negative campaign after being accused of being a bulky

Romney has got to spend time being mr nice guy, or trying to be. Kind of blunts the attack dogs

[lunatica]

26. That's a very astute observation

[treestar]

40. Yes! I like it

Takes the wind out of KKKKarl's sails.

[truthisfreedom]

28. For those of you who've either forgotten or not experienced Lord of the Flies...

Here's a synopsis:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/summary.html

I recall reading the book in junior high school and realizing that my fellow classmates were capable of such madness without the protective cocoon of civilization to temper them.

The corporate raider mentality that brought Mittens his conscienceless hundreds of millions of dollars is hauntingly familiar in the light of this book's theme. Part of the problem with unsupervised, cannibalistic capitalism in this country is that the "boys" run wild and do as they wish at the expense of the vulnerable and defenseless. The boulder, Piggy, and the conch are symbols we must not forget when we examine the madness and mayhem of modern cold-blooded leveraged buyouts.

[Quantess]

30. If here were remorseful about it today, we (the public) might let it go.

But he just snorts and waves it off, and basically says eh, who cares, it was no big deal.
He should be showing us that he has grown as a person and has become nicer. But, nope. He obviously isn't any nicer now than he was back then.

[malthaussen]

31. While at Sandhurst, Cadet Bernard Law Montgomery

... set on fire the trousers of a fellow cadet. While the cadet was wearing them. In his memoirs, Monty remembers the incident with absolute glee. Perhaps there are more parallels between the characters of the two men?

I think there is great misunderstanding of this Romney incident, probably because the victim was gay, and therefore we assume it was an anti-gay hate crime. But it seems to me more likely that this was an act done in the name of upholding conformity and community standards. "He can't look like that," etc. The victim was not, in the eyes of Romney and his co-conspirators, upholding the proper standards of an inmate of Cranbook School. And this is probably why Romney doesn't apologize for doing anything wrong: he doesn't believe he did anything wrong.

-- Mal

[amandabeech]

38. And I have read comments from people who dealt with Gen. Montgomery during WWII

who thought essentially that Montgomery was a narcissistic jerk. I believe that Ike was one of them.

You notice that he did not have a political career after the war. He'd probably pissed off too many people.

Comparisons to Montgomery are not flattering to Romney, although they may be correct.

[malthaussen]

41. "Montgomery was a narcissistic jerk"

Ah, you get my point, then.

-- Mal

[amandabeech]

43. Yes, very much so.

--Amanda

[tawadi]

35. This comes as no surprise to me

Mittens always struck me as a narcissistic egomaniac.

[hedgehog]

37. ""Going back to the 1960s, that (sexual orientation) wasn't something we all discussed

or considered.""

Lord of the Flies maybe, but King of the Bullshit for sure!

I remember eating lunch in 8th grade with a couple boys who were kind of outsiders - I was the last girl and they were the first boys at the divide bt where the girls and boys sat. I know why I was an outsider, but had no idea what was going on in their lives. Now I wonder if one or more of them were gay? The point being, kids then may or may not have known the words, but they knew who was different and tended to isolate them!

[KurtNYC]

44. Mitt was 17/18 and was saying "atta girl" when Lauber answered in class

Mitt's parents moved after being elected governor and this forced Mitt to move from home to the dorms to finish at the prep school. He had issues and it seems he took them out on others whom he perceived to be vulnerable and unable to fight back. He certainly knew what he was saying with the phrase "atta girl"

Also, after WWII the concept that someone could be gay was well known and while the word 'gay' did not become the term of choice for many years, there were a variety of terms, mostly derogatory, that were used throughout the 1950s -- fruit, swish, etc. A 1950s understanding of gay men was that 'they wanted to be women' so Romney's harassment fits with the period.

A hit TV show from this period was "Bewitched" which featured the character 'Uncle Arthur' played by Paul Lynde. Also highly visible in this period were Charles Nelson Riley and Rip Taylor. And earlier, the late 1950s, Little Richard who's biggest hit was a song called "Tutti Frutti." So Americans including those in their late teens were very familiar with the idea that someone could be gay.

An aside, Little Richard was disowned by his father for being effeminate, then accepted again when he started making money:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_richard#Personal_life