The Washington Post‘s New Hit Job on Mitt Romney
The mainstream media has hailed President Obama’s decision to come out in favor of gay marriage, only criticizing him for dragging his feet on the issue. By staying on message and emphasizing the economy, Mitt Romney is trying not to get sidetracked into yet another side issue.
But will the MSM let him do that? Not if they can help it. Yesterday the Washington Post ran a front page story, which extended many pages, depicting Romney as a bully and homophobe via a 50-year-old incident. According to the story, Romney led a group of fellow students from the elite Cranbrook School to cut the long bleach-blonde hair of a quiet student named John Lauber, who later came out as being gay.
Here is the very first paragraph, where reporter Jason Horowitz says Romney “stopped something he thought did not belong” at the school:
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.
How, one wonders, does Horowitz know this, since he never interviewed Romney, who has said in a TV interview that he doesn’t even remember the incident? Even if the act took place — and it was ugly and inexcusable despite different cultural mores in that era — is it even relevant to make something that Romney engaged in fifty years ago an issue in the campaign? To ask that is to answer the question. Of course the Post should not have run the story. The sole reason for it is to depict Romney in an unsympathetic manner.
Scores of people can recall things they did in high school that they deeply regret. Indeed, incidents in which I was the victim in summer camp traumatized me, and I recall myself engaging in similar actions against other campers in order to get in with the group and not make myself an outcast. (Yes, I am being more than vague here about what happened, but I still recall the incident in question.) I grew up. I am not the same person I was over fifty years ago, and certainly Mitt Romney is not either.
The story goes on to put Romney down in other ways. Readers learn that he was proud of his family’s wealth, looked down on those who were scholarship students, and was “bowled over by the wealth of some of his friends,” particularly diplomat Max Fisher, who had a home movie theater with numbered seats in his house. You get the idea? Mitt Romney is not your average Joe, and he does not care for the working stiff. You know, the exact group of swing voters that had become Reagan Democrats and that the Republicans need to get back to their ticket come November.
Now, our colleagues at Breitbart.com have reported that the Post story was inaccurate in major regards. One witness, Stu White, told ABC News that although he had been quoted as having “long been bothered” about Romney’s prank, he was not there, and didn’t know about it until this year! Rather than issue a retraction or correction, the paper rewrote Jason Horowitz’s original story to change it to read that White was “disturbed” about the incident after the Post told him about it! The paper’s editors did not inform readers that they had changed the text of the original story.
Moreover, Lauber’s sister, Christine, told ABC News that she knew nothing of the bullying incident. The late John Lauber’s other sister, Betsy, issued the following statement:
The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family.
Said Christine, “If he were alive today, he would be furious [about the story].”
Nevertheless, the Post report makes it appear that John Lauber, who died of liver cancer in 2004, had a hard and dissolute life because of the prank played upon him at Cranbrook so many years ago. Readers can decide for themselves whether or not that was the case. But Lauber got a seaman’s license at the University of the Seven Seas, graduated from Vanderbilt University in English, rode horses with the famous Royal Lipizzaner Stallion riders, and worked as a chef in various places, including cooking for American troops in Iraq. His life choices were his own, and no one can prove that Mitt Romney’s forced haircut had anything to do with his successes or his failures.
The major point was well put by Christine Lauber. The Washington Post and other media sources wrote and ran the story for a political agenda: to paint Romney in a bad light and to make voters — especially gay voters — turn against him.
Thankfully, we have an alternative media — like PJM — that calls them out and does not let them get away with such mischief.
It is obvious why the Democratic Party would want to smear Romney, making him an entitled and bigoted rich kid. But they are less forthcoming about why the entire subject of gay marriage is so explosively emotional. It is my view that the entire subjects of misogyny and androgyny are too hot to handle, even by the “tolerant” and “multicultural” left and its liberal wing. I tried to explore the question of androgyny here: http://clarespark.com/2012/05/10/androgyny-with-an-aside-on-edna-ferber/.
I don’t think Romney wants to make gay marriage – or marriage in general – a big issue. Someone might bring up his family’s history in Mexico.
Oh yeah, the guy who’s father was
a polygamist should point out that
his opponents greatgrandfather was
one too.
Will Freismuth
i don’t care about mitt’s family in mexico…i care who he…HE.. is..
the family of the boy who supposedly got his hair cut…says the press is wrong..and using this as a ploy for plitical gain..just as they are investigating donors to Mitt’s campaign.
this is a smoke screen…the gay crap, the hair…all to take your eyes off the economy..
“-”♥ AND AGAIN…I DON’T CARE WHAT THE HELL MITT’S FAMILY IN MEXICO DOES…it won’t change our vote to obama
There’s something that doesn’t smell right about this story. I did go to prep school in the mid 1980s, and there were some cruel pranks played (hazing the new hockey players by the older ones via shaving their nether regions.) And standards had gotten slack by then, we only had to dress in suit & tie for Vespers and dinner three times a week. It’s very different from when my dad was in prep school in the 1950s. But 1965 was still very much in the 1950s, especially in prep schools. There would be grooming standards, such that I doubt any school dean would approve of long hair, especially bleached-blonde long hair. And outing yourself in high school in those days, even by simply acting effete? I’d need more than the word of a couple of partisan Democrats.
totally agree!!..i was graduating from 4 years of boarding school at this same time….an there were standards…a boy with long hair, much less bleached, would not have been allowed, period..period. He would not have been allowed on campus until that hair was cut.
and if anyone cut another’s hair , there would have been hell to pay.
A bunch of democrats looking for more smoke for their machine. AND THE MEDIA IS DOING A GOOD JOB OF SPREADING IT..THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE THAT DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE OBAMA WENT TO HIGHSCHOOL!!!!!
Hypehypehype
Seems to me this story was written by someone who grew up in the 80s or 90s and is picturing in his mind some kind of persecuted goth or emo kid. I’d be interested in seeing a yearbook picture of the guy with with his “…bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye.”
Admittedly, “long” hair was new and unusual back in ’65 and people made fun of it. Google “1965 long hair” and you’ll see a very young David Bowie with quite a mop. Maybe that’s how this kid looked. I don’t by the dye-job, though. Guys didn’t do that in 1965.
Long hair, bleached blond by sun and salt water, was already common among surfers in California before 1963. The Beatles were latecomers, and long hair was as much a sign then of ‘I’m different’ or ‘I’m more hip than you’ as body piercings were forty years later.
But in a private school situation, being an early adopter of such a cultural signal entails a lot of risk of opprobrium from the ‘community’. A modern parallel would be wearing a Tea Party shirt in a University Angry Studies class – you might not get a haircut, but you’d damn sure find yourself in a hostile environment.
This was in Michigan. Where the governor’s son went. 1965. Such actions would not be tolerated by the school’s administration.
True. Forgot about the surfers. I’d still like to see his yearbook picture, though.
If the average boy of the fifties and sixties had to live by the laws, rules, and cultural expectations of today, they’d pretty much all be in lunatic asylums or prison for life. I know I’d be in the lunatic ward of the prison.
There are a couple of updates on this story at Drudge. If this turns out to be another Rather-gate, I hope the WaPo gets skewered and their credibility is forever lost. Here’s a link to another recent interview with some of the same folks that contradicts the WaPo story.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/11/Washington-Post-Romney-Bullying-Profile-Contradicted-By-Automobile-Magazine
So, other than being in the tank for Obama, why would the Post run such an ancient story with so many holes in it? For one thing, peoples memories are shorter than ever and the Down Stream Media knows if they get the ball rolling, even if the story is full of half-truths and innuendo, any retraction or correction is so minimal it never catches up to the designed narrative they’ve planted in the public’s mind.
This is yet another example of the total corruption of the media, the only entity named in the Constitution and given the essential task of bringing the powerful to account, keeping them honest. The Post is simply another cog in the dhimmicrat party machine – they work 100% for the enemy and that is what the Left in this country is today.
This is WAR, people. Take up your arms!
“I am not the same person I was over fifty years ago, and certainly Mitt Romney is not either.”
The Etch-a-Sketch candidate is not the same person from day to day.
Obama was for gay marriage in 1996 but against it from 2008 through 2011, and for it in May 2012. What was our point again?
Our point is real unemployment in double digits, $5 trillion in new debt in three and a half years, we are no longer respected around the world, a federal government that rides roughshod over citizens and small businesses (Gibson Guitar still has not been charged with anything.)
We have a bloated federal government that parties on our dime, I would like a chief executive who enjoys firing people.
From CBS News:
The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term.
Mr. Obama blames policies inherited from his predecessor’s administration for the soaring debt. He singles out:
“two wars we didn’t pay for”
“a prescription drug program for seniors…we didn’t pay for.”
“tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for.”
As for RR, I’m not sure that going from one extreme to another counts as a significant change.
The Daily Mail UK ran with this story yesterday and as of this morning had over 700 comments, with the lead headline reading something to the effect: “Schoolmates paint grime pictures of Romney’s cruelty to classmates! “It was right out of the Lord of the Flies,” bemoans another.”
That entire story has now been scrubbed from their pages. Sometime between this morning and when I logged in around 10:00am something happened that made the editors just yank the entire thing.
Something to make you go hmmmmmm……..
LOL! A call to general quarters for the sake of their credibility. Did it work?
This is just the begining of a very well coordinated strategy. If you thought Sarah Palin was mistreated by the media in 2008, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
I’m not sorry for one damn thing I did back then. We just weren’t all spoiled, molly-coddled wusses like the faux males of today, who go crying to Momma every time they skin their knees or get a sniffle, or someone is “rude” to them.
Even at our advanced age, we’d kick their butts! They better never have to fight a real war.
The guys in the Army today who actually fight are great, but if you had to find millions of soldiers, we’d be screwed, all because Mommy never let them walk to school by themselves.
This race will be won by Romney getting white males angry enough so they show up at the polls in record numbers. The libtards ain’t voting for him, anyway.
Do they really think this kind of stuff will work AGAINST Romney? Dream on, idiots!
“…no one can prove that Mitt Romney’s forced haircut had anything to do with his successes or his failures. The major point was well put by Christine Lauber.”
The success, failure or even the opinion of the victim is hardly “the major point.” The major point is the offense. Did it happen? Romney can’t remember. But who would remember such a minor thing as holding someone down and cutting off his hair?
“But who would remember such a minor thing as holding someone down and cutting off his hair?”
That’s the whole point – it’s understandable, considering that not even the family of the alleged victim remember the alleged incident either!
The Washington Post didn’t quote anybody with first-hand knowledge of the alleged incident. Apparently, the only person who “remembered” the incident is the yellow journalist at the Washington Post.
The major point is the offense. Did it happen? Romney can’t remember. But who would remember such a minor thing as holding someone down and cutting off his hair?
That’s wholly beside the point. Which is, 47 years after the alleged event, that EVERYONE be imprinted by the ‘Romney is Evil’ meme – whether or not the event occurred.
The villain in the story is the viciously biased Washington Post, for its second attempt, since the primaries began, to poison the candidacy (Rick Perry’s was first) of a Republican by yellow journalism . It shares the guilt with the Obama administration, which almost certainly coordinated with the Post on the printing date.
The hit piece by WaPo was unfortunate in that it was put into play without good prior research. That newspaper, along with other socialist (aka Democratic) media outlets, understand that they are responsible for doing effective work on behalf of not just Prez Barack Hussein, but also its Congressmen, the unions, the bureaucrats, the NGOs, the judges, hell, even PBS.
But there will be no price to pay. There’ll be a new hit every week, just as in recent national campaigns, and if history is any guide, most will work. Once installed, it’s tough to shake a Fictive Reality, a system of thought that disregards reality once it’s been installed. There are many critical facts to be kept off the table and, as embarrassing as this Mitt-the-bully hit is, you don’t hear anybody talking about spending or financial meltdown, so count this bullying incident as a mission accomplished.
You know, it’s amazing how far the MSM will go to cover up for Obama.
I wrote a little about it here: http://mmwatchers.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/mainstream-media-bias-on-presidents-time-off/#more-37
I bet mr. whorowitz cannot name the high school Dear Leader went to? Think he knows Zero’s GPA in college and law school?
But the writer is from a protected left-wing minority and is sufficiently progressive so no recrimination will befall him.
He’s not so well protected as they used to be. WaPo is losing money hand over fist – daily circulation down 5%, Sunday down 10%, ad revenue down 17.5% against last year, and they posted a $22+ million loss for the 1st Quarter.
Horowitz has brought disrepute to the brand – specifically by putting quotes around the hearsay statements attributed to Lauber by a Democratic former classmate (which Horowitz didn’t mention) who claims to have spotted him in an airport bar in the ’90s, and THAT is what they talked about! Of course, the editor shouldn’t have let it run, but Horowitz will make a handy scapegoat.
Ask any cop or lawyer about the odds of five eyewitnesses to an incident describing it exactly the same 50 minutes after it happened, but these guys have no discrepancies after almost 50 years?
How stupid do they think we are?
Nothing infuriates Romney more than the sight of a sissy or a wimp; it is in his genes and a family tradition. He will lead the strong on to victory and cut the paths of the weak. His scissors still remain with him.
I’m “sooooo” happy that with massive unemployment, Iran about to get an atomic bomb and about to be bombed by Israel, the European countries about to undergo an economic collapse, and Russia and China making noises that they want to take over the world, THE most important thing Americans can talk about today is whether or not a presidential candidate cut somebody’s hair almost 50 years ago.
Sometimes I wonder whether or not we really deserve to be the most powerful nation on the planet. With a mainstream media like this and voters who actually listen to this stuff, you have to wonder how we really remained a world power after all these years. Somehow I don’t think this “issue” is going to have much bearing on anything and it simply buys Obama another few days of not talking about the wretched economy we have. Pathetic.
The biggest mistake Romney can make is to deny remembering it, and I’m assuming here that it actually happened. Simply say it was a stupid high school thing to do, not the only one, and one of those things we remember as we get older and are embarrassed about on recollection. Then move on. The idea that this “incident” is front page news on a national paper only underscores the desperation of the incumbent to find something, anything, in which to diminish his challenger.
Sadly, I think the damage is done, no matter how many holes you poke into this wonderfully orchestrated Washington Post hit piece. A great majority of left leaning folk who have commented on this story on the websites I visited have bought it hook line and sinker.
Romney is a bully who beat up a gay kid in school.
They all believe it now.
Honestly? Let them believe it. They were not going to vote for Romney, anyway.
This story set off every single one of my bull detectors, and it ought to have set off everyone else’s, too.
There was no way an incident like that happened as told in a prep boarding school in 1965.
Nobody but the left believe it and they wouldn’t be voting for him anyway.
I just seems so obvious that they are trying to tap into the cause du jour which is “bullying” which is going to warp our kids just like calling everything “racist” has. If you dare to have an opinion about racial issues someone disagrees with, “that’s racist!” Now if you confront anyone over anything, it’ll be “Don’t bully me!”
All that aside, are they SERIOUSLY trying to smear a 65 year old man with something he did in high school? Seriously? I find this just…absurd.
As long as money is flowing in, confirming to the Washington Post that its audience agrees with the Washington Post as to what the Washington Post decides what its audience wants – business as usual is what we get.
Frankly, the cultural pygmies treat what they don’t want to hear the same way – the same way as a two year old throwing a tantrum, or covering its eyes so that it doesn’t see what it doesn’t want to see.
They’re flat broke. They can’t GIVE that thing away.
I know – because they keep leaving the Sunday one on my doorstep. I mean, I have a bird and can use it in the bottom of the cage, but really? They won’t stop.
Think Romney loved doing high school hijinks? A friend of a friend of a friend’s cousin said he went to high school with the Prez and Obama was a big fan of giving wedgies…
Sure hope the Wapo covers that story……
Gay and gay marriage should be most interesting now that Obozo is in support of it, but this runs counter to most of the Arab world that he is trying to win favor with.
And last polling that I recall black Americans are a block that was strongly against the gay life styel and marriages.
This is just another sign that O is short on money. Groups that are not contributing to his campaign war chest are getting the proverbial short shrift. Meantime, the gay lobby (or just gays in general), allededly one in six of campaign contributors, get preferential treatment. Of course, Biden did help……
Give me a break…more chaff. And if this is the best the Washington Pravda can throw at him, he will sail to an easy election in Nov [with the major caveat that the election would be PRESUMED to be fair....]
“Thankfully, we have an alternative media — like PJM — that calls them out and does not let them get away with such mischief.”
And they do not like it one bit, and are doing every they can to shut it/them/us up.
Amazing…these bugs had to go back 50 years to besmirch a man who’s been squeaky clean all his life.
With Obama…..though…a pass…on every issue AND RECORD since he was born! One only need to look back at yesterday to see the outrageous stunts he’s perpetrated on Americans.
I think Romney’s hijinks humanized the man countering his Eddie Haskell persona.
As the insider-trading-diva Martha said: it’s a good thing.
I agree. I would imagine that others have had a similar reaction. This is a good thing for Romney. I bet some of the journalistas are kicking themselves over this one.
I am having a good time watching these journalistas make utter fools of themselves with these absurdly bullshit-laden stories that should be the stuff of SNL for crying out loud. It’s a gift, really. I almost look forward to the next one, all the while Obama continues to make one mistake after another.
The best part of this whole silly story was Romney’s giggling reaction went asked about it. He was he to respond, it is such a ridiculous story.