Ka-POW! The Bully Takes One on the Chin! [UPDATED]

On the relevance of R’Money the Bully – Markos nails it:

On the other hand, Romney’s bullying has been so resonant precisely because it confirms what we already know about the Republican—that he is a callous, privileged, entitled asshole. He is such a jerk, that he even bullies the 1 percent. He is such a jerk, that his campaign-selected prep school friends trashed him as well, calling him “evil” and “like Lord of the Flies.” It’s not hard to see what happened: The governor’s son bullied everyone into submission and he mistook that for friendship. He is the classic mean entitled rich kid from every 80s teen movie.

It is confirmation that Romney isn’t just an insufferable dick today, but that he has always been that way. Had Romney responded to the bullying revelations with a heartfelt apology, admitted that his behavior was wrong, and called for an end to bullying in schools today, that would show the kind of maturation and growth in character that would render the issue into a positive for him. But of course, he didn’t. He just doesn’t think he ever did anything wrong.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has made some minor corrections to the original story, according to The Atlantic Wire.  The substance of the story remains intact, that Romney and a gang of classmates attacked another boy without provocation (unless you consider long blonde hair a provocation).  The story links to another article about Horowitz and how he got the information for his story on Romney.  It’s a great example of dogged journalism.

Horowitz went on to get four of those schoolmates on the record as witnesses to the incident, and another’s account anonymously, which strengthens his report against charges Horowitz misrepresented a source. Poynter directs us to the blog DC Porcupine, which documented the change the post made to the account of one Stu White (emphasis Poynter’s).

[…]

Since White isn’t one of the sources who the story relies on as a witness to the haircut incident, the change doesn’t really undercut Horowitz’s report, but what Poynter and DC Porcupine rightly call into question is the Post’s decision not to include an editor’s note about the change when it first made it.

The story on Horowitz makes it quite clear that what Horowitz did was pure reporting.

Not a single one of the people Horowitz interviewed contacted him before he began working on the story. Not a piece of information was given. All of it was found out through reporting.

And that paragraph at the top of the story is what makes that self-evident. And it’s the reason, as much as the predictable sources are saying the story is “cracking” under pressure from “investigations” being conducted and “fact-checking” missions by right-wing blogs and self-professed Internet truth-monkeys, why this story will be in every credible biography of Mitt Romney that’s ever written.

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14 thoughts on “Ka-POW! The Bully Takes One on the Chin! [UPDATED]

    1. When the WaPo issues a retraction, then I’ll believe it. A random blog attributing an uncorroberated twitter account ain’t news… Or hadn’t you heard?

        1. Oops. Meant to say, you’re LUCKY Harlin Muh Darlin’s using verbs.

          I guess you’re also lucky that I realize it when I forget to include necessary adjectives.

          Apologies for the omission.

          Rock on, brother. Love the stuff you post!

    2. Anyway, SOMEONE is lying. I wonder who that it is. Spoiler alert, you racist dickhead, it isn’t the Washington Post or anybody for that matter other than Mittens RMoney:

      http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/11/1090943/-Romney-doesn-t-remember-but-35-years-later-I-still-do

      Now, off you go, you bigoted, racist twit, back to Stormfront.org or Patriot Action Network or Free Republic or whatever the reactionary, racist, homophobic, white nationalist, rightwing fringe cesspool out of which you crawled.

  1. The country is falling apart, Obama is slipping in the polls and you are clinging to this story like it is all you desperatly got. And now we’re slowly finding out that even this story has holes in it. I like the part about how he ran into that guy at an airport bar years later was like some lame scene right out of a movie. “hey are you so and so? Yes I am” wow

    1. Again, when the WaPo or perhaps the CJR refute the basis of the story, you might have a point. Until then, it’s just a futile attempt to deflect from the reality that Romney is, and was, a bully.

      Pretending that some random blogger relying on an unverified twitter source is sufficient to refute a well documented piece of journalism would be comical if it weren’t so pathetic.

          1. Phil: “Rasmussen generally skews about 4% Republican, combined with the margin of error, it’s at best a tie.”

            SuperId knows that, Phil. He’s not usually that disingenuous. Must be getting a nervous.

            Anyway, national polling, especially at this juncture, misleads more than it informs. SuperId knows that, too.

  2. I updated the piece with some additional information from The Atlantic Wire and other sources. Basically, all the evidence points to the truth of the story, “internet truth-monkeys” or not.

  3. Tom, Pete, Dante, and all the other apologists, let’s get something perfectly clear. This is less about something that Romney may or may not have done in high school than it is on how he responded to it. And he blew it, and blew it hard. His refusal to take a stance on this issue, one that has had a lot of notice lately, renders him unfit for the highest office in the land. I’ll let Rick Unger of Forbes take it from here:

    Screwing up as a kid is a non-issue for me. Laughing off a case of teen bullying is a very different matter. Being president is, in no small part, about setting an example for the nation and while this story may have been politically difficult for Romney, he had every opportunity to turn it into a positive message. It was an opportunity he did not take as he was far too concerned with saving his political skin than to see the possibilities that would allow him to turn a few political lemons into lemonade.

    Don’t judge Mitt Romney on his behavior as a kid. That’s not fair.

    But do judge him on how he chose to react to the story. It’s not about using these high-school incidents to score a few political points to call Romney’s character into question—it’s about how the man who wants to live in the White House reacted when given the opportunity to use his own experiences to set an example for the nation—particularly the nation’s kids.

    This man wouldn’t last long in our military, how can he be Commander-in-Chief? (Can you say multiple Vietnam draft deferrals?)

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