Osler's Razor

Mitt Romney not being able or not willing to stomach an inconvenient truth from his past poses a number of questions for the man he is today. Especially when that man seeks a job with potential for a minefield of inconvenient truths.
 

Some people called it "hijinks" but to me it seems more like assault. I read that the other people involved didremember the incident with guilt and regret for years afterward. In fact, one of those guys involved said that he ran into the victim at an airport years later and apologized for his involvement in it. He said he willnever be able to forget the look of terror on the kid's face. But of course, old Mitt has no memory of it....until it serves him politically to remember and then apologize....47 years later. To be fair I guess i might not want to have everything i did in high school put in a newspaper article....I went to three high schools and at one of them i signed a 80 year old nun up for the Navy. I just felt that Sister Joan Therese could use some structure and discipline in her life, andshe was already used to wearing a uniform of sorts. It seemed like a good fot but did not end up enlisting. Something about hammer toes making her not eligible for combat. However stupid tjis was, it was a harmless prank...no one held anyone down against their will,
 

At first maybe it was exciting to the alumni office to count a presidential candidate among them....but as more facts emerge about it, i wonder now if they are wishing he would have just enrolled at DCD Detroit Country Day...
 

The fact that this type of thing happened in and "Elite" private school in Michigan does not surprise me (in any day or age). The fact that he doesn't remember scares me on a couple levels.

Hazing is still rampent in our society (FAMU Marching Band the latest tragedy). The hazers think of it as a rite of passage; it was done to me so it is ok for me to do unto others... But not all those being hazed view it in that light and when they don't take it well they are perceived as weak by the hazers and their peers. This is when it things go bad.

As much as I disliked high school - I still remember all of it; the good, the bad and the ugly ~ laughter and tears. During those years we are so impressionable it these incidents wreak havoc on our ultimate development.

If Mitt has long term memory issues (usually the last to go) what is one to say about his short term memory.
 

Professor, we'd all be mortified if the Washington Post printed the worst things we did in high school. I'm a criminal defense lawyer, and there's a reason that juvenile crime files are sealed. People shouldn't be punished far into their adulthood for the foolish things they do when they're still children.

Was what he did reprehensible? Yes. But he was a kid. Let it go.
 

You are right. Not remembering is as bad as doing it in the first place.
MMM
 

I agree with Cody.

I'm no fan of Romney, but there are a number of reasons he doesn't remember the incident, and the audacity of several liberal commentators calling Romney a liar (as Mark Shields did yesterday) is beyond bold.

Perhaps he doesn't remember because it was an unpleasant memory he forced to the nether regions of the brain. Or perhaps it was not as big a deal, in fact, as it is being reported.

Whatever.

By all accounts of people who know Romney, he is a kind, compassionate and generous man. Whatever he was at age 17 is not material to me.

All that said, I will not vote for him, but my voting preference is not reason to characterize a decent man as a bully because of a day when he was a kid.
 

Cody and Oso--

I agree with you that childhood incidents should not be treated the same as those by adults-- that is one reason that I am opposed to the sentence of juvenile life without parole, in fact. As I tried to make clear in the post, I think we should give a pass to youthful indiscretions, and even some adult ones, such as President Bush's.
 

The heart continues to amaze - seldom expanding physically, though a well spring of faith, works, insight and much more...

Oh, to be in attendance where our President and Mr Romney share their experiences and vision that led them to seek the electoral prize they contest - Cody is correct, we all have much to "let go" and many better for it when they do.

Though, what the heart conceals also amazes - When did legacy replace service as vision, stature within "the Choir" replace works and being "seen" replace seeing?

Yes Marta, far too many inconvenient truths...
 

We need to remember that Clinton did not inhale... But at least he remembered lighting up.... so... I dont know...
 

Deeply Disturbing Things:

1. I agree with Mark. Number One in terms of disturbing in re this story is Romney's assertion that he does not remember? What? Not possible. Either this is a false (or wildly exaggerated) accusation or Romney is dissembling or he has a serious memory loss problem. But some things we don't forget. Romney's reaction has done much more damage to his reputation thus far than this puzzling story. He needs to come forward with a satisfying explanation / reaction immediately.

2. This feels like a WaPo hit job. I have often called the Washington Post the best national newspaper in the land. But this story stinks to high heaven. The timing is suspect. The hook is too convenient. We know now that the reporting was a bit sloppy and maybe even willfully negligent or worse.

3. This story is much more 2012 than it is 1965. It is written to ring all our bells. Bullying a gay student. As they say on TV, ripped from today's headlines (the day after the President presented gay Americans with their long-awaited humanity).

It may have seemed like a story about hair ("long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen; Give me down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer; here baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy"). But that wouldn't make any sense, because what did hair have to do with the 1960s? Any intelligent person swimming in our current culture will understand that a confrontation over hair in the mid-1960s was obviously code for a confrontation over homosexuality (BTW: 1965 is four years before Stonewall).

Doesn't anybody other than me feel like they are being played?

4. This is for Mark as much as it is for the WaPo, but why is the frame of reference the past of George W. Bush? We have a current president who basically did not exist until the media created him in 2004. He is a president with composite girlfriends. He is a person who offered his own story of his past that has been virtually accepted by opinion makers like the Washington Post and NY Times. Think about what a contradiction this must feel like to those of us who feel like there are two standards of journalistic scrutiny for GOP candidates and Democratic candidates.
 

This is a tough one for me, having been the object of bullying and pranks. No, no forgiveness. He knew what he was doing, actually premeditated if he had scizzors with him. He's just lying now about remembering. I remember a lot from those years, so he's just a big fat bully and liar. Wow, what wonderful qualities in a man running for president. He's a clown.
 

I find it really telling that everyone else remembered this incident and he did not. To cut someone's hair off to me seems almost an act of violence. After all,it is what they did to concentration camp victims,prisoners of war and before they burned people at the stake. If he could forget such an incident,he is callous indeed. If he did not forget,and says he did,bad again. I just see in my mind's eye a horde of people coming after one person with a scissors...it might as well have been a gun.I cannot imagine how frightened and shamed this boy must have been.Emotional damage. Nightmare time. And we just forget about this little incident? I don't think so.He may have sterling qualities,but I wonder about the quality of his compassion for the other.
 

For the record not everyone at Cranbrook Kingswood was a saint but nothing remotely like this went one while I was there... By the Mid eighties the Guys still got away with more than the girls did but we were ALLL under a microscope, pretty much. At least if felt like it to me.
 

I think Cody and Oso have this wrong. They are applying standards related to the criminal justice system to the evaluation of a presidential candidate. That is setting the bar kind of low.

Nonetheless, I agree with the notion that people grow and change, and so incidents in the distant past do not necesarily show how a person is today. But, to do that, a person has to acknowledge what happened.

Lets assume that the incident is true.

If Mitt Romney forgot about it, I think it shows that he just didn't think it was a big deal to engage in that type of conduct.

On the other hand, if Romney remembers it (I think he remembers, how do you forget something like that?) and is pretending not to, I think he is dishonest to not own up to it.

In short - I think this means either that Romney used to do this type of thing all the time, or he is dishonest.

Either of those things are relevant to the evaluation of a presidential candidate.
 

As I said previously, the "number one" most disturbing aspect of this story to me was that Romney did not "remember" the incident. I am starting to believe that his non-remembering was strategic.

As I also stated previously, numbers 2-4 on the incredibly disturbing list was the sloppiness and possible malevolence of the story and the people who sought to promulgate the accusations. It seems to me that the Romney camp decided to ignore the story and stay focused on the economy and the big issues of this campaign rather than take the bait and go to red alert on an emotional accusation from 47 years ago.

I am still having trouble accepting that decision--mostly because I am a fighter by nature. It seems to me a matter of honor, and the perpetrators of such calumny need to be called out. But I have to admit, thus far, the Romney strategy seems fair wiser. He looks pretty good right now not stooping to the level of his accusers.