There's Something Fishy About the Mitt Haircut Incident

Mitt Romney said today that he doesn’t remember his amateur haircut prank, while apologizing for having been a puckish boy in high school. Five of his fellow students claim to remember it, or that’s what the Post says.

But, hold on a minute.

According to the Washington Post, one witness who says he does remember it is Stu White. But notice a detail in the Post story.

“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident.

The Post story does not say that White says he has long been bothered by the incident. It gets into White’s head and makes the claim for him.

That’s an important distinction. ABC News followed up with Mr. White, and found this:

“White was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.”

How could White have “long been bothered” by a prank for which he was not present, and of which he was not even aware until the Post told him about it? Is this sloppy writing, or fabrication?

Jason Horowitz wrote the Post’s 5,500 word story, that just by coincidence comes out the day after Obama flip flopped on one of the subjects at the heart of Horowitz’s story. The Post has already piled on with a second story, hinting that it may be in full macaca mode (another made-up story the Post used to destroy a Republican candidate on behalf of a Democrat). Horowitz has some explaining to do, and so do his editors. Did he fabricate any part of the story and implant it with Mitt’s school friends? Did he work on the timing of the story’s release with anyone in the Obama campaign?

This is the mainstream media, specifically the Washington Post, and politics intersecting. Don’t believe in coincidences.

Update: Retracto is on the case.

Update: And so are Hot Air and Matt Lewis.

Update (3:52 central): I emailed Horowitz about this about 10 minutes ago, to get his take. He has yet to respond. He has also gone silent on Twitter.

Update: While we await Mr. Horowitz’s response, which should come along any century now, let’s take a look at Obama’s book. In which he talks about eating dogs and shoving little girls. The monster.