Lots of us did dumb ass things in high school;

[hedgehog]

most of us have enough integrity to really apologize rather than attempt to belittle or deny the harm that we did then.

Judge Romney not for being an ass back then but rather for being a gutless coward today!

[iamthebandfanman]

1. my dumb things

never involved intentionally hurting someone else.. i can gladly say

[teddy51]

2. Romney was a bully back then which means he probably hasn't changed. I detest bullies

and I have never witnessed one changing there ways. Once a bully always a bully.

[seabeyond]

3. no.... i never forced anyone against there will, nor purposely hurt or humiliated

anyone, nor was a bully.

those are places all their own and i am not going ot own behavior like that, nor noramlize his behavior, nor put it with merely "dumb ass things"

[think]

4. Very true. His open support for torture and his former Bush advisors

in this area concern me a hell of a lot more!:

John McCain says it's torture and so do I.

[The Magistrate]

5. I Remember Every Time I Hit Somebody, Ma'am: He Is, As You Say, A Lying Coward, Not Just A Bully

[hedgehog]

6. I allow for the possibility for people to change, to grow up -

Lincoln changed, so did Ted Kennedy. Both were better men as they aged than they'd been in their youth.

Clearly Romney hasn't changed or matured. Still a bully and a liar.

[LiberalFighter]

17. And his wife likes him that way.

[Happyhippychick]

7. Dumb things does not equal assault

[hedgehog]

8. Six boys were involved or witnessed the attack,

five men have expressed sincere regrets.

[Arkana]

9. So did I, but I didn't physically assault gay students

because I didn't like the way they wore their hair.

Romney's past actions are indicative of a sociopathic personality.

[hedgehog]

10. I'm anticipating people saying "that boys will be boys"

and attempting to trivialize bullying from 50 years ago. People do mature, it's why we have age limits for driver's licenses, marriage licenses and alcohol use. But today, instead of admitting what he did and apologizing, Romney went into a deny, deny," it wasn't that big a deal" mode. If anything, the man is more culpable than the boy, because the man is expected to know better!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. Not all boys are nasty bullies.

"Boys will be boys" doesn't explain that kind of behavior. I would expect a bunch of teenage boys in a boarding school to do dumb, thoughtless things. But most of them don't do what Romney did to that poor kid. And now, he claims he doesn't even remember the incident. If he does remember it, he's obviously lying; if he really doesn't, he considered a really nasty bit of bullying to be too insignificant to think about after it happened.

Either way, it tells me he was an asshole then and is still an asshole now.

[HopeHoops]

11. I'm going to have to invoke the 5th here.

[renate]

12. the thing is, he doesn't remember doing this... it was that insignificant an event to him

This story will be dismissed by a lot of people, especially people who weren't so nice in high school themselves, and sure, nobody's perfect--but to me it is really key that he claims not to remember this.

What kind of person participates in an assault with a group of friends on a defenseless classmate, scares him to death, cuts his hair against his will, and doesn't even remember it?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Most kids did dumbass things; but most kids also

didn't bully other kids; most kids didn't forcibly cut off some other kid's hair because they thought he looked gay.

I wonder what motivates some kids to go beyond ordinary dumbass, thoughtless kid stuff to that sort of cruel bullying. And I wonder whether and to what extent those kids get over the tendency to be the same kind of asshole when they grow up.

I suspect Mittens is still the same bullying asshole he was as a teenager.

[Jennicut]

15. And some of us were on the other end of that bullying.

It makes Romney look even worse to me. I was a shy, quiet kid that either either got picked on or hoped to blend into the background. Romney is beyond an asshole.

[Whisp]

16. take your lumps ShittMitt

so some do stupid shit when they are young and stupid but you had a chance to make a proper apology and you didn't. Figures tho, when were you ever honest about anything in your life except when you honestly lie at every opportunity.

[alphafemale]

18. Well...to be fair

Mitt often doesn't remember what he said last week!

[soccer1]

19. Lack of empathy

Seems to me that Romney has trouble empathizing with others, whether the "other" be his dog Seamus or his school-mate who was pinned to the floor and had his hair chopped off by an "old enough to know better" Romney. Although Romney has "matured" enough over the years to abstain from such obviously grotesque and cruel behaviors, I wonder if his actions at Bains, his insensitive remarks on the campaign trail and the policies he would pursue if he were POTUS are not born of the same character flaw, that flaw being an inability to empathize unless the object of empathy is like himself?

[DrKPhd]

20. High School Stupidity

Certainly a lot of us did dumb, bigoted, racist things in high school. For most of us, our lives are a constant struggle against ignorance, prejudice, and temptation. But I like to think that the men we elect President -- our Number One Representative -- would be a better person than that, a wiser person. I like to think that the man we elected President would have stood up for the abused in high school, not because everyone does that, but because very few do.

I'd like to see some other people come out and say they saw this, though. We need to make sure it's the truth before we judge.

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. Four on record, one off record

All respectable people, and some regard themselves as Romney's friends even now.

That's a conviction in pretty much any court in the country. This happened. Not only did it happen, it left an indelible mark on these men's memories. One recognized the victim in an airport bar an apologized to him...30 someodd years later.

Whether this happened is not in the least bit of doubt. It is a fact that Romney and his friends attacked a young man, and held him down while Romney cut his hair. That's pretty much indisputable, unless you attack the credibility of these five - five! - witnesses.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

21. Professor Bradford Lee of the Naval War College was hazed,

says he still has a mark of the letter "D" he received from Dubya on his backside and called the incident of branding a terrifying experience. I assume the "D" was for the Delta fraternity and not a more sinister symbol of satanic worship.

Dubya is a sociopath, and you know how that worked out, mitt is probably a sociopath too!

[Marzupialis]

22. I didn't cut anyone's hair

No sir. Nothing I did in high school compares to Romney's assault on the kid.

[JoePhilly]

23. Let's discuss an important issue ... Obama's birth certificate!!!