Teenage Romney assaulted a kid he thought was gay

[^_^ 5,021]

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named.

...

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”

“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.”

“He was just easy pickins,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.

The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall.

Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.

...

In a radio interview Thursday morning, Romney said he didn’t remember the incident but apologized for pranks he helped orchestrate that he said “might have gone too far.”

His campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in a statement that “...Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.”

...

Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Lauber died in 2004, according to his three sisters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Maybe he wasn't into gay rape fantasies.

[SMOKE 1,426]

just curious here. i understand its a five page article & all. but, why would the OP cut this from the article, while leaving the text before and after it?

The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

[Penny Lane 8,159]

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!”

Sounds like what a few people around here would say.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Sounds like what a few people around here would say.

Perhaps Romney felt strangely attracted to the lad.

[Laveau 67]

I'd like to know how he REALLY feels about his past behavior NOW. Most of us have done regretful things in our youth. However, I work in an inner city high school and there are just some teens who shine when it comes to knowing manners, right from wrong, etc. They are who keep me in this profession. I might be wrong but I highly doubt if the guy feels bad about his actions. Makes me sad. And horrified.

I know some of you have the thought: kids will be kids. But after 15 years as a HS teacher I hv observed ( from knowing past students ... My first class are now in their early 30's!!) the attitudes, in general, do not change that drastically for most.

Also, my daughter is 22 and son is 17, I couldn't imagine either treating a schoolmate in such a way at whatever age was mentioned. He didn't like his HAIR??? Ok! Thats fine. But Unacceptable behavior for a potential leader even if he was a teen.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I'd like to know how he REALLY feels about his past behavior NOW. Most of us have done regretful things in our youth. However, I work in an inner city high school and there are just some teens who shine when it comes to knowing manners, right from wrong, etc. They are who keep me in this profession. I might be wrong but I highly doubt if the guy feels bad about his actions. Makes me sad. And horrified.

I know some of you have the thought: kids will be kids. But after 15 years as a HS teacher I hv observed ( from knowing past students ... My first class are now in their early 30's!!) the attitudes, in general, do not change that drastically for most.

Also, my daughter is 22 and son is 17, I couldn't imagine either treating a schoolmate in such a way at whatever age was mentioned. He didn't like his HAIR??? Ok! Thats fine. But Unacceptable behavior for a potential leader even if he was a teen.

I don't know where you went to school at but at my old high school they used to beat people up and then afterwards stick their head in the toilette just for being a Freshman.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I don't know where you went to school at but at my old high school they used to beat people up and then afterwards stick their head in the toilette just for being a Freshman.

You must of had a really fvcked up childhood.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I was holding out hope for Obama and the people that support him to campaign on his accomplishments in the last 4 years and promote himself as being the best choice for the country for the next four years.

<sigh>

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I was holding out hope for Obama and the people that support him to campaign on his accomplishments in the last 4 years and promote himself as being the best choice for the country for the next four years.

<sigh>

No need if Romney continues to implode. A piss bottle could beat Obama if the election was held today, but Romney insists on keeping the race competitive for some reason.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

You must of had a really fvcked up childhood.

Oh and nothing like that ever happened where you went to school at right? I'm guessing you were home schooled?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Oh and nothing like that ever happened where you went to school at right? I'm guessing you were home schooled?

Nope. I went to a large public high school in Los Angeles, close to 1500 students in my graduating class. Upperclassmen didn't go around beating up freshmen and stuffing their heads in toilets.

Edited May 10, 2012 by ☼

[Laveau 67]

Nor in my high school (that I know of).

Anyway, Romney says he doesn't recall the incident.

[james&olya 1,121]

He probably doesn't. Which makes it that much more horrifying! If this was an aberration and not part of his true character he would have a much harder time forgetting.

His behavior since, particularly his attitude while Massachussets governor on funding programs to help deal with bullying of gay high school students, indicates his attitudes are unchanged. Of course he will apologize. He will say or do ANYTHING to obtain the power of the presidency! Etch-a-sketch Mitt, the bully!