Romney the Bully

Yeah, I'm afraid it's serious. So much for the high road, and so much for any Obama campaigner ever complaining about a ridiculous attack from the other side.

 

So not only is the Obama campaign behind the fact that the Washington Post wrote a story on a guy who, in the present, tends to come off as a rich insincere jerk seemingly incapable of empathy, was, 40 years ago, also a rich insincere jerk seemingly incapable of empathy - their very honor is now forfeit and no quarter shall be given

I hope the fainting couch is of the pull-out variety.

 

Yes, the birthers have totally been redeemed here.

 

I have procured videos of Barack Obama eating his boogers in the fourth and sixth grade. Watch for them?

 

???

I just think of the 1 billion things to attack Romney on, some alleged crap from his high-school days (unless he raped or killed someone) is just. plain. stupid. Does that make a strong case to independent voters? We're going to peer into the souls of these candidates via their high-school yearbooks, all while living in the cynical, constructed-narrative world of 2012? lol, okay.

And it's lucky for me I'm nowhere near fainting. The fainting triage lounges in SF are full to capacity with non-independent voters who're hyperventilating and collapsing over Mittens pre-19 behavior.

I'm voting for Obama, but good lord this country could use a substantive conversation about policy, vision and problem-solving. This "swiftcutting" technique has no analogy to the birthers other than also being an echo-chamber experiment in teh dumb.

 

white guy prank you say?


<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y1-VCn9YvG0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I'm not arguing the merit of the article; as I said before I think it would be a dumb thing to argue about what Romney did as a teen (though Obama eating dog as a 6 year old, or living in Indonesia, or faking his own place of birth is of course fair game - and he must have known what he was doing when he chose his middle name and later when he had the audacity to take an Americanized nickname) were it not for the reinforcement it gives to the idea that he is today an insensitive, entitled prick, who has never demonstrated persuasively the slightest modicum of empathy.

But that's not why I replied to your post.

I replied to reply to the idea that people don't care how candidates were in high school and don't vote that way. Because that is hilarious.

Voters pretty much only care about how the candidates were in high school, or rather how they imagine they were.

Nobody outgrows high school. Nobody. Just as nobody outraces any trauma. It can be managed but it also shapes our world view.

The kids that were picked on still hate a bully, of any sort. The kids that got low or mediocre grades still hate the know-it-all valedictorian (this is how "elite," a word that means best, came to mean worst). We all still want to **** the homecoming queen (or king) and looks matter. We like the class clown (see: Bush, George W.) because he makes the tedium of school/life that much more bearable. We hate the rich kid if we're poor. The outcast or weirdo hates the popular kid (Obama).

All of this is high school.

Everything we needed to know we might well have learned in Kindergarten; but it was the lessons we learned in high school that took hold for life.

 

Your party has been scrutinizing Obamas childhood boogers from the beginning. You ridicule this Romney story because it happened so long ago and yet you're down with a party that questions everything about Obama before he was even 10.

And, to quote Bill Hicks, "'Why are you still talking about the Kennedy assassination, Bill? It was a long time ago; let it go.' Well, as long as we're talking shelf-life don't ever talk about Jesus to me."

 

Obama made fun of Special Olympians while president.

You must shut up now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HOBTUCv4o0

 

Agreed. I don't even think the fact that he was a bully then and a bully now is relevant. There are lots of people who were bullies as kids and grew up to be great people, and vice-versa.

If this article was the opposite and said that Romney as a 15 yr old was super nice and everyone loved him, would it change anyone's opinion of what he is today? Assuming not, I don't see how the opposite would be the case. There's plenty of evidence that Romney sucks *now* - that's all that really matters.

 

It also has no analogy to the BS attacks on Obama (anti-American Muslim Socialist Fascist anti-Christ) due to its distinction of having probably been true.

It is more analogous to Obama taking the nickname Barry as a teen. The right looooves to call him Barry. I don't call Mitt "Willard" and I cringe when someone like Al Sharpton does. I think it's dumb to attack people for their names, chosen or not.

But while both things are almost definitely true (Obama=Barry; Romney=Bully), are these exactly equal sins?

The point of the story is that Romney isn't just a dick now but that he's always been one.

 

And your boy George W. made thousands of American soldiers go overseas to die for absolutely no reason "while president." I think you better do the shutting up.

 

You admitted defeat since you had to pull out something completely irrelevant.

This thread is about bullying. Obama made fun of some of society's most vulnerable members -- the Special Olympians.

Therefore you're been completely humiliated and must shut up right now.

 

Can anybody lend me a yawn smilie?

 

B-Bob, I'm not as ticked off by the idea that Mitt was an avid bully in high school, and possibly a homophobe, as I am that he flatly denies remembering the incident, giving a "blanket apology" for whatever "sins" he committed at the time. And I wasn't kidding about the Nixon comparison. Romney appears more that willing to flat out lie about nearly anything. I would have been more "impressed" with the guy had he simply said, "Yeah, I did some really stupid things in high school, and that was one of them. Looking back, I regret the incident very much." No, he couldn't manage that. Had he taken that stance, however, I doubt that it would be nearly as big a deal.

 

I think you're reading too much into this Deck. As far a political lies go, this one's pretty tame. He's basically dismissing the specific incident while admitting he was an *******. Compared to "I didn't inhale", or the allegation that "I'm against gay marriage" was a lie, or a zillion Bush/Reagan etc stuff (which actually led to wars) this is nothing. He would probably have read your apology if you'd offered it. Anything to shut up what many feel was a manufactured issue. I doubt it would have made any difference to the reaction -- which is a combo of fitting the facts to allready held impressions and a whole of 'this is really a dumb thing to discuss noise.' But ya' gotta fill the space and get the page views.

As to the 'possibly homophobe' if you're going by this incident (in which we don't even know if the guy was gay) again I'd say you're way off base to even consider it. Prep school boys picking on a kid who was different. In 1965. You can bet the same crap went on in Kennedy's prep schools. Kids are assholes. Sequestered privileged kids are probably worse. Certainly 45 yrs ago. I think they're much better now. But there's so much wrong with what he believes today that this stuff is a distraction, and petty.

Just be thankful in 6 months or so he'll just be a footnote. Maybe he'll show up on SNL with Bob Dole?

 

...as an aside. Those former kids coming forward now. 45 years later to b**** about how they were treated in prep school by one of their privileged peers. Whiny brats. Old, whiny brats clamoring for a spotlight with high school gossip.

Most probably deserved the wedgies they got.

 

Of all the responses, this seems pretty interesting and perhaps even somewhat true. Thanks for that perspective, Batman. I don't totally agree with you, and if a lot of voters i know consider high-school images of candidates, it is only within the depths of the subconscious, but it's still interesting.

Maybe stories like this resonate with independent (? exist ?) voters more than the fact that Mittens wants to double the defense budget while further cutting historically low tax rates.

And totally agree with bnb about what kind of person comes forward from distant high school days to whine about a bully. It's pretty amazing, if you consider your own high school and fast forward 45 years from that point. I literally can't even remember much of high school. Couple of basketball games, couple of funny incidents, and some girls I dated, but that's about it.