Less than 48 hours after the Washington Post published a major, 5,000 word exposé that portrays Mitt Romney as a homophobic, high school bully, the story has started to unravel. Jason Horowitz’s profile alleged that Romney high school chum Stu White has “long been bothered” by an unconfirmed incident in which Romney supposedly cut the hair of a fellow student. But White wasn’t present at the alleged incident, Romney doesn’t remember it, the alleged victim has been dead for eight years, and White only learned about the incident decades after it supposedly happened.
In response to that, the Post today airbrushed the story. Until today, Horowitz’s story read:
“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. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.”
Today it reads:
“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 said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.”
The Post did not publicly acknowledge that alteration for hours — more on that below. It just appeared in the online version. Also today, Lauber’s family has come out to contradict key parts of the story, and they further suggest that the Post smeared their deceased family member, who obviously is in no position to defend himself. Despite Lauber’s having been deceased since 2004, the Horowitz story directly quotes him, through another so-called witness to the haircut event. Is it standard Post practice to quote the dead, and use them as props in political stories?
Thursday afternoon I tweeted and emailed Horowitz directly about the White discrepancy. Horowitz never responded and has gone silent on Twitter, but today, the Post quietly altered the story to clean up that problem. The paper is evidently paying attention to criticisms of the story, but not responding directly to queries about it. This morning, I emailed the Post ombudsman about the White timeline problem and the Lauber family’s reaction to Horowitz’s story. I sent the ombudsman two polite emails on the subject. The ombudsman, Patrick B. Pexton, has not responded at all. But while I have been putting this report together, the Post did publish an editor’s note regarding the White timeline.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story reported that White “has long been bothered” by the Lauber incident. White later clarified in a subsequent interview that he has been disturbed by the incident since he learned of it several weeks ago from a former classmate, before being contacted by The Washington Post.
The editor’s note raises more questions: Who is the classmate, and where did the classmate hear about the haircut story? In what context did the unidentified classmate tell it to Stu White? It’s possible that Horowitz brought it up to the classmate over the course of working on the story, who then told it to White. If that’s the case, Horowitz tainted the witnesses.
The Jason Horowitz story is no small matter. Its release coincided perfectly with the week’s messaging from President Obama. It depicted Obama’s rival, Mitt Romney, in a sharply negative light. It was a front-page, 5,000+ word story that must have taken weeks or even months to write. Significant resources went into the production of that story. Yet the Post has gone silent as cracks have started to appear in it.
I have sent Mr. Pexton a third email on the subject, asking questions raised by the editor’s note. The ombudsman, who is supposed to be the readers’ representative at the newspaper, has not responded.
Also Read:
Is it standard Post practice to quote the dead, and use them as props in political stories?
Why not, the left helps the dead register and vote all the time? Why not give them a say in historical events?
I wish this page just had a like button. Most times I am too lazy to comment.
LOL! Sooooo true.
I know that, sometimes, Bob Woodward will quote people in Comas.
Thomas Friedeman is quoted a lot. Paul Krugman is quoted a lot. Nancy Pelosi gets quoted a lot.
Oh. Wait. My mistake.
I was listing people who are Dead from the neck, up. You need them to be totally dead, like Obama’s ability to TELL THE TRUTH, don’t you.
Stories like this make all the easier to hate liberals.
To be fair it never was that hard.
Hate never comes hard for some
Especially for liberals who hate everyone who doesn’t think like them.
I too, as a longtime WaPo subcriber wrote to Pexton about this story, and told him I was disgusted by it. He has previously responded to other criticisms of mine, but I’m not holding my breath until I hear from him on this one…
He’s probably too busy working on the story that prints Obama’s transcripts and other college records.
Judgment and instincts only get so far, but it’s hard to not suspect a JournOlist-style hit here. What’s odd is that they’re are so brazen about it, but then, they would have to be in order to cash in on King Obama’s apparent exposure to an Arthur C. Clarke-style monolith so he could evolve to a higher stage of self-awareness.
Congratulations to all involved, you have not graduated to the moron stage.
Next up: ethics, and how to tell a racist without the armband and white hood.
Why does this shameless media shilling for Obama not count as unreported campaign contributions? Everyone laments how expensive campaigns are. Well the reason they’re expensive is mainly due to the cost of media advertising. And just what is the value of having over 90% of the media in the bag for Obama, advertising for free on a daily basis and at the same time, destroying the opposing candidate? Seems to me it’s priceless. And it should be criminal.
Next it will appear with Matt Lauer on NBC, editing out the words of the dead person, and playing audio tapes of him screaming “My hair, my hair”, while NBC denies that it “intentionally” edited any words and ABC will show fuzzy pictures of the back of the dead man’s head…which seem to show a bad chop job.
But there is NO bias in the Propaganda and Lies Ministry. When the magazine cover of Romney comes out with his eyes reddened and photoshopped to make him look demonic, a weak apology will follow, that suggests they just couldn’t catch it in time before the issue went to release.
And, the ombudsmen of all of these institutions of great integrity will insist that they are definitely not inside shills, who have the morals of rats or the snakes that eat them.
Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were rank amateurs when it comes to pushing forged, faked and slanderous “evidence”.
No man or woman with an ounce of integrity would work at any of these places, nor allow their names to be associated within this cesspool or to be within a million miles of this moral bankruptcy.
Shame on anyone who uses their talents and skills to advance the credibility and fortunes of such despicable cretins, they can’t raise the sewer, they can only sink within it.
But the edited “money quote” will actually be from the original cast recording of “Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical.”
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair!
Like Obama, the WaPo story is “evolving” right on their won page! And they said you cannot observe evolution. Or, wait…maybe this is a mutation?
This affaire smells like a Jason Blair or Tawana Brawley (sp.) footnote. Lots of nose wrinkling odor, not any substance.
One may wonder why the Jackson/Sharpton ambulance chasers haven’t chimed in with their usual outraged comments bent and shaped anew to fit this latest nastiness of this presidential campaign…..because no blacks are involved?…..yet?……a campaign which will doubtless escalate as it gets more desperate.
Face it folks, Obama continues to drag our Presidency to a newly descending nadir, compounded by the Washington Post’s creative presence.
Charlie – You left out Dan Rather.
Gasp!
Head-smacking omission!
The WaPo has become so bad, my dog would be embarrassed to have to poop on it.
That one got a chuckle out of me.
How about putting it in a birdcage ? Our feathered friends could go splat! all over it.
Just a amall note. This is early May.
It hasn’t even begun to start to get in gear yet yet.
This is the warmup for the kiddies.
Let them shoot their credibility now; later on, no one will believe them.
Don’t bet on it. They aren’t doing it because they are stupid. By October, they probably figure that the pile of crap on Romney will be the size of Mount Everest and although many people will disbelieve some of it, many people will believe much of it.
Again, they aren’t picking strategies out of a hat. YOU aren’t their target.
Betting on common sense is a good way to be very very poor.
Precisely WEO. This salvo in the full frontal misinformation assault on Romney is intended to peel off enough of the unclaimed clueless to secure a victory. WaPo could care less whether informed cognate adults are outraged over this baldfaced foray into partisan politics.
Sad reality is, Obama does not need to capture the responsible thinking adult demographic in order to win. After three generations of government induced ignorance and dependency, there are now more than enough sheeple out there to secure the win for him. Their only problem is getting enough of the brain dead bleeters to the polls on election day to tip the scales to their handlers.
“Obama does not need to capture the responsible thinking adult demographic in order to win.”
Tis sad, and likely to prove true. We will find out this November.
The Founders never envisioned this level of ignorance or dependence in Americans. If that demographic keeps growing, it WILL be too late to stop the decline. If it continues in this direction, I predict historians will place the line in history of the “date the U.S. died as a liberty-loving, free nation” to be sometime in the next 10 years.
It’s almost amusing, in an ironic sort of way. The terrorists are winning.
It wasn’t their direct actions that did it – but the affect of those actions is accomplishing their goal to see America brought to her knees just as surely. People say they want to “safe”, guaranteed safe. Hence, the Patriot Act (more power to the Executive – Presidents LOVE that), TSA (where you are ogled and groped by minimum wage idiots – try imagining THAT happening in 1995), and a new cabinet-level dept called Homeland Security (sounds a lot like “Fatherland”, doesn’t it?). All this, so we can be “guaranteed safe”. Phooey. There is no such safety to be had in life.
And along with the body-blow of 9-11, the idea of depending on the government to keep you from starving to death and the Democrats’ thirst for power causing them to latch onto that gravy train early in the introduction of such dependency, has been sapping this nation’s people of their character of independence and self-reliance (slowly but surely) over the past 80 years.
Our country, with its unique idea of individual liberty and individual responsibility, is dying because those ideas are dying. I am sorry I lived to see this. I hope we turn this around in November and begin to move back to those ideas and encourage others to do so as well.
Yep. People will naturally assume that where there’s smoke there’s fire.
Exactly how they killed off every non-rom candidate to leave us with Romney.
Yup, Liberal Debate… a.k.a., “The Snub”– don’t like it, don’t dignify it with a response.
I notice the Post has a bunch of pictures of Romney and his classmates taken from the school’s 1966 yearbook. I didn’t see anyone fitting the description of a traumatized bleach-blonde emo gay kid. Maybe he was too ashamed to pose for the group portrait.
Mitt and I were born in 1947. We graduated from high school in 1965. That means the 1966 yearbook was printed a year after graduation. Not only is the date wrong, but the details are revealing themselves to be false. Perhaps someone in early onset dementia is the root of this non-story.
Mitt Romney graduated from Cranbrook in June, 1965.
Why would pictures of him & his buddies be in the 1966 yearbook ?
Seems like something else to bring up if one wanted to show a clear and consistent prevalent pattern of *malice* towards the Right. Not mistakes, but malice.
A pattern unobservable up close on the ground due to the faintness of the marks can be unmistakeable when seen from the air or a height.
– and whore-o-witz.
And in a time when the USA is headed over the cliff, financially, socially and morally, this 50 year old piece of gossip…. is relevant to what, exactly?
Many people don’t remember 1965, I admit that I was a child but it was pretty much Ozzie and Harriet and Ricky Nelson. Everything was traditional and clean cut. No body used the term homosexual. If anyone was gay it was kept in a locked basement not a closet. The Beatles had just come to America the year before with their prince valiant hair cuts. Any hippies were not on most peoples radar. So anyone sporting a pony tail, especially at a private school, would have been labeled a non-conformist or a weirdo not a homosexual.
The whole point of the article was to make Romney look old fashioned and judgemental and not tolerant. But maybe after almost 4 yrs of the celebrity president people are yearning for an old fashioned traditional president
Your point about “old-fashioned” and “judgemental” is closer to the mark than most of the comments from the professional pundits. The homosexual thing, I think is a minor aspect of it.
What they are doing is setting the table. All of this stuff is just preparing the ground that Romney is a classic 60′s Republican, a mean, hard-hearted, money-obsessed, woman-hating, minority-hating man. They don’t really care that much of it is such obvious fabrications. In a few days nobody will be able to sort out what who said to whom and when and whether they heard it from somebody else or not. What will remain is that Rommey is an old-fashioned, mean-spiritted person who will ruthlessly do anything to get his way. (the Mormon thing will be tied in soon enough).
And the money ball will drop in September and October. The hammer will be when they begin to paint the picture of his businss career…the thousands of people he laid off, the unethical financial dealings, the complete disdain for the common man. That’s when they will have all the facts straight, and although there will be plenty of people who have different interpretations, they will have hundreds of credible and honest people they drop out of the clouds from dozens of businesses they claim Romney ruined, and they will cover the earth feet think with dust. They know that everything before that will be forgotten because that picture will be the Mad Max landscape everything else is building up to.
No way the Romney camp will be able to respond to 1/20th of it.
It’s the reason Romney is the worst possible candidate we could possibly have.
Just like they intended all along. The stories about their supreme confidence are because of that. The economy won’t make page 22 for two solid months. By November, the 50% of independents they need to supplement their 8% voter fraud won’t even remember if the economy is good or bad.
Until they go to the grocery store, or have to fill their tanks with gas…
” he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago . . .”
Who contacted him several weeks ago? Why several weeks ago? When was the last time this former classmate contacted him? For what purpose was the contact made? Why and in what context would the classmate reveal this specific incident? When did he begin to find it disturbing and why?
Honestly, to write a story like this all to fit into the stupid Liberal ‘bullyciding’ meme – how does someone do this and look at themselves in the mirror.
It’s easy when you have no ethics. When the Borg tells you what to think, say, write and do, you can do anything without any conscience or compunction.
“You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”
It’s already been noted,.. It’s not about whether they get caught faking a hit piece, they really don’t care. The damage is done, because partisan left wing hacks have the story to spread, and they won’t stop spreading a lie.. even the Obama campaign still references the story to attack Mitt..
They know that a certain segment of the public isn’t tuned in, and once they hear the smear, won’t bother to listen to how it was a faked story, and highly partisan attack. Bad enough, but they won’t stop here, they will pile story after falsehood, after lie, after loony theory.. till they build a false narrative so thick, you could use it to shield yourself from a nuclear blast.
Anything, to drag Obama bleeding over the finish line,..
So what if they go bankrupt, he’ll just shred the Constitution one more time with an executive order nationalizing the papers, saving their jobs.. and creating a newly minted state media industry,.. all left wing, all the time..
and opposing opinions?
why would a state controlled press ever care about doing that? It’s not like they aren’t already owned by the democrat party…. they don’t even bother hiding it anymore.
Instead of Mitt Romney going out and apologizing for something that may have happened 47 years ago based upon an 11 page Washington Post (The Obama Gazette)hit piece he should have grabbed his privates and demanded they do an 11 page investigation into the Sheriff Joe Arpaion criminal investigation. This is a real crime story not some playground antics that happened 47 years ago. When the hell is some in the Conservative media going to do a report on the forged selective service number and the forged computer generated birth certificate and the fraudulent use of a SS# (one that was flagged by E-Verify for crying out loud). This should open the door for the whimpering little cowards in the conservative media to do their damn job.
Bingo! By apologizing for it, Mitt legitimized it. We have got to stop playing into the left’s game. We only lose.
You are spot on. If he should have responded, it should have been with an indictment of the DOJ, EPA, and Zero himself.
Geez, I knew he would not be able to handle the heat.
The Washington Compost just yakkity yaks a streak and wastes your time of day
Does any sane person even believe anymore a single thing it has to say?
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carried his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
Cicero
What’s wrong quoting the dead as long as the quote was from the dead’s mouth during WaPo’s daily séance?
I bet the mystery classmate who related the incident so upsetting Stu White heard it from Horowitz.
How nice that the WaPo is scouring the nation to dig up schoolboy hijinx.
One counter-column says this was the peer disciplining of someone who violated the lofty dress code of the snobby prep school. … Who knows.
But seriously, look at the situation:
Dems get into a hissy fit on Romney’s dog; turns out Obama EATS dog.
Now, Dems get into a hissy fit over how Romney treated a classmate
Question: Did Obama EAT PEOPLE ? ……. Are there cannibals in Kenya ? in Indonesia ?
What happens when the WaPo starts to look past meaningless drivel, and interviews forensic computer graphics specialist — was the birth certificate forged?
And private investigators interviewing Obama’s youthful friends, teachers, classmates, girl friends, neighbors.
Well, it is getting out there that in his book he admitted to shoving a girl in school because she was fat.
I really love this. If Sarah Palin Flatulates, the Washington Post will send 30 reporters to determine which gasses are involved, what possible food she ate may have led to her breaking of the wind, and what the local response to the ‘incident’ was.
But Barack Obama shoves a girl in the playground, admits it in his book, and no one want’s to investigate a thing about the Obama past.
Where’s the Bagala piece regarding Obama’s bullying?
This would make a great movie! Like that Woodstein andBernward one! Can’t wait! Can somebody get on this? What delicious irony to have clooney in starring role!
I went to U Michigan in the mid 70′s, a number of people in the dorm were from Cranbrook as well as other high end private schools. I thought many of them were ‘snotty’ but they arrived better prepared academically than most public school kids. ‘Gay’ was not a common thought then, but ‘hippy’ was. Frat houses just stopped the serious hazing that used to go on.
I really think if the episode happenned it was more in the line of a ‘dress code’ violation, where in ’65 the guy was growing his hair out to be cool, but it didn’t conform. Wasn’t all that unusual.
Next it will be the episode where Mitt ‘Short Sheeted” a bed, or put sugar in the salt shaker NO it whas the salt in the sugar – how devisive. Or OMG, he skipped class once. But then the real horror that certainly invalidates everything – He Didn’t eat his brussell sprouts at the school cafeteria.
I don’t see Romney Adverts in my state, GA is pretty solid red., and I understand why he does not spend money here. I just hope he is keeping the heat on Obama’s record.
Is this Washington Post sort of like The Onion (except without the ratings)? A lot of us out here outside the beltway are apparently not in on the joke. Is this some sort of parody website that faux elites in DC post their “hate regular people” rants in fictional stories?
If so, I’d recommend these Post writers reach out to the Onion’s staff, as well as perhaps some former National Lampoon writers. You really want to get your farce right the first time you put it up there. It looks bad to put up a weak version and keep editing it as this “Washington Post” parody paper apparently does. Also, it’s probably a good idea to actually be funny and clever, not just bitter. Apparently this WaPo thing has no shortage of bitter, angry people but that’s no place to start writing parody. Parody needs to be fun and intelligent, not bitter and dull.
Why, if it has not been suggested, I suggest that we all contact this newspaper’s ombudsman, and even the reporter himself if he is available!
Won’t it be great to have our voices heard!
They don’t care. Really, they don’t.
But more importantly to their credibility, will the WaPo “Journalists” just sit idly by and let Gloria Alred scoop them with her genuine fake bimbo eruptions?
Watch out WaPo.
Keep this up, 11 page BS stories misrepresenting an incident from 47 years ago, and you’ll be down in the sewer with the NYTimes.
I cancelled my post subscription after they smeared George Allen for weeks and weeks. I suggest you all do the same. I decided that I couldn’t let that filth into my house and brain anymore.
Same here, and I was only interested in their people, places and things pages.
One of the more obvious things to do would be to give this back to 0 and his minions in spades. However, one of the very first things 0 did was to ban disclosure of his records. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=76782#axzz1uev1p5t4
This is E.O. 13489 of January 21, 2009, which directs the Archivist of the U.S. to seek permission from the incumbent President before releasing ANY records concerning the Pres. That includes ALL school transcripts and other official documents relating to 0.
This entire sordid story is turning out to be fiction.. knock me over with a feather.
It’s about as nonsensical as President John Tyler’s grandson not liking any of the GOP contenders per POLITICO. Remember that shit? haha
Obama’s sycophantic media will go to NO END to find, make up and/or fictionally ‘elaborate’ on stories/ non-stories to have Uhbama and the Democratic Party portrayed as less stupid, useless.
Now THAT’S a tough gig!
Bush Republicans supported the torture and murder of captive prisoners.
Is it any surprise Romney Republicans support holding a person down and cutting his hair?
clawhammer supports the knee jerk regurgitation of leftist memes.
This was the mid 60s in the Midwest. So it had nothing to do with homosexuality. That is 2012 pundits viewing things from their modern perspective. It was about hippies, the beginning of the Vietnam war era, etc. Did Mitt do something not very nice, yes probably. But it is being way overhyped for obvious reasons. Also, even in this misdirected action, he was the leader. The entire article reinforces that he is the proactive one. The one who sees a problem (as he defines it) and goes to solve it. He will make a wonderful president. And any negatives by being a business person (stated above) are more than compensated for by his being the man needed at this time in our history which is why, even in left leaning polls, he leads on the economy.
I don’t believe it ever happened. The family doesn’t recall the incident.
Don’t you think, as a mom or sibling, you’d remember if your son/brother went to school with long hair and came home with a chop job? They don’t.
I remember when, in the late sixties, there were the Racks and the Surfers. Racks worn leather jackets and hung in gangs. Surfers had long hair and wore plaid and paisley. Surfers where often nabbed and had their hair cut off by the Racks. Oddly enough, no Rack would be caught dead manhandling a gay guy. They left that for the bikers and Aryans.
Many of the Racks grew up to be union thugs.
Many of the surfers grew up to be stoned.
The rest of us just grew up.
Obama Democrats support the killing of women and Christians in Egypt and Afghanistan by inaction TODAY. Is it any surprise they continue to demean women as objects just for sex and try to corrupt Christian faith in America?
Too many here seem too worried about this as the start of an onslaught against Romney. I am not sure it is. If even at the start of the campaign, they have to reach back to 1965 to find such a ludicrously thin story to then mangle so deliberately, it suggests to me that they are desperate. Romney has meanwhile not done enough to project a different persona, which I believe he can do. But he’s should start doing it – and learn how to keep his preppie personality in check in the process. He is a very decent guy from what I can tell, and I think this will easily come into focus as the public begins to focus – which will not even begin to happen for five months. Meanwhile also, I think someone ought to find out who told Stu White about the incident “a few weeks ago.” I have a feeling that could be the “follow the money” logic here. Too bad the WaPo will be the target of that sort of investigative spirit rather than the practicer of it. Tells you how far we’ve come since 1973, to say nothing of 1965.
73 only happened because a republican was in office and a disgruntled FBI grunt wanted revenge. If Nixon had had a D next to his name NOTHING would have happened.
Same with WWII. Do you really thing the media (news print and hollywood) would have been behind the war if Roosevelt had been a republican?
The coordination among the media and the Democratic left would be shocking if it were not such an old story. This thing was timed to breathe life into the lastest distraction Obama has ginned up to avoid the hot glare of attention on our failing economy and his role in that failure.
Mark my words: Next week the story will be whether the Democrats should move their convention from “anti-gay” North Carolina. They will do anything to distract us.
@petekent01 on Twitter
This “story” has the fingerrints of the Obama White House all over it. They’re using Nixonian tactics to try and steer the discourse away from having to talk about the economy.
This is yet more evidence of the decline of a once-great newspaper to little more than a supermarket tabloid.
I graduated from Cranbrook in 1963, two years ahead of Romney. I don’t recall any interaction with him but I did have occasion to engage in conversation with his father who would have his hair cut at school. Ev, the school barber, was an institutional legend and ran his shop for as long as anyone could remember.
Hazing of underclassmen by upperclassmen occurred, as it does in all boarding schools, but generally it was of a constructive nature correcting some misbehavior or social faux pas. I don’t recall any truly malicious incidents of bullying. Actually hazing at Cranbrook was quite tame compared to my experience during Officer Candidate School, Marine Corps.
John Robinson
90% of the readers of the Washington Post were already going to vote for Obama. The real reason for this story is to put the meme out there. Facts don’t matter, because the typical Obama voter isn’t going to read the article or any of these discussions anyway.
However, now that the meme is established, Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live, et al, are free to run with it, and that’s where the typical Obama voter gets his/her news nowadays anyway. By November, when asked who held down the gay guy and viciously cut off his hair (among other things), they’ll all answer knowingly, “Romney did.”
If you don’t believe this will happen, dig up the youtube video that questions Obama voters after his election. Who said she could see Russia from her front porch? “Sarah Palin” (it was Tina Fey.) Who said there were 57 states? Typical answer: “57 states? (nervous giggle recognizing the stupidity of the comment) Sarah Palin?”
The power of these memes, once they are picked up by the comedy shows that the under-30 crowd relies upon for “news” is incredible.
Washington Post now joins NBC and ABC who defamed George Zimmerman by falsifying a 911 call and a police video
If you and I had done what those folks did, we would be rotting in jail for years, but they get away with it, because they went to school with Obama and everyone else.
It’s par for the course in an election year. Remember the Rick Perry racist rock? Our job is to keep spreading the word of bias around – many resist the notion of a corrupt free press!
Hey, if BOB WOODWARD can have lengthy interviews with BILL CASEY, while Casey was in a full-fledged COMA, ———————— then it’s OK for this new guy Horowitz to throw the occasional statement into the mouth of a dead guy.
I mean come on people…………….. Get with the program……………
Cowardice and libel…
With publication of this first page story, the Washington Post officially has no journalistic standards. Shame, shame, shame.
Romney could either have denied the story outright or said it was a childish thing he regretted. Unless he beat up so many kids it’s all a blur, saying he “didn’t remember” it is an obvious lie. Adding that it wasn’t about the kid being gay is like the wifebeater telling the judge he didn’t give her the black eye, but she deserved it. We had a chance to nominate Gingrich or Santorum. Now we are stuck with yet another “I’ll say anything” Nixon/Clinton.
“Didn’t remember” is the right answer because in fact he didn’t remember doing anything like this, and that’s almost certainly because he didn’t do it. It was also the wise answer because none of us remembers everything he did in school forty or more years ago. If you think we’d be in any better position with Gingrich or Santorum, think again. Probably the WaPo would be running a story even now about how Gingrich assaulted some gay boy at his school, or that Santorum raped one at this school.
Is it standard Post practice to quote the dead?
Why not quote the dead. In Chicago they can vote!
This has Dan Rather written all over it.
Deep(dead) Throat ?
In 2008 right after John McCain won the nomination the NYT did a baseless, factless, hit piece accusing Sen McCain of having an affair. It appears that this year the WP won the coin flip for doing Obama’s dirty work and issuing the first baseless, factless, political hit piece on the Republian nominee. And this had to be coordinated with the White House. The same week that Obama drops his stupid silly “evolving” nonsense and outs himself on gay marriage the WA post goes back 45 years to tell us about a teenage prank of Gov Romney’s that was supposedly was against another teenager others thought was gay. Of course the story is now falling apart. Even the alleged victims family says the post has it wrong, and isn’t it convenient for the post that the alledged victim of this 45 year old, supposed teenage prank, is dead? The WP is clearly on the left, but they didn’t appear to have fallen into total journalistic disreput like the NYT. Now they have! Journalism is dead at both those newspapers. The story now is how deeply was this hit piece coordinated with the Obama reelection team and/or the White House?
MSM is peddling this line that the bumbling Joe Biden provoked Obama into coming (out) prematurely when the Prez had the DNC Convention in mind as a time line. Also, that Biden has apologised to Obama for this.
The dots connect otherwise. The WaPo hit-job took months to prepare. Ergo, Obama had long ago decided to stop ‘evolving’. That he chose this moment was because of the NC verdict, when even Blacks voted 2-to-1 for the amendment.
Then, there the no small matter of his war chest. The $1Billion mark was swiftly disppearing into the distance. Even Soros was sitting on his hands. So, he gave the Hollywood tribes their red meat.
“Is it standard Post practice to quote the dead, and use them as props in political stories?”
Well, given that the dead (both physically and mentally) are a major voting block for the Dem party, I’d have to say……yes.
So this huge Post story is nothing but unconfirmed hearsay. Why can’t the MSM do any serious investigative reporting anymore? All they do is promote the political agendas of the owners. I almost wish I had a subscription to the Post, so I could cancel it.
In the long run I suspect this primarily helped Romney and harmed Obama. If the Obama machine has to go back several decades for this “story” they are very,very hard up for material. It is likely to offend most people’s sense of fairness and emphasize the ugliness and emptiness of Obama as a man along with his campaign.
The state of journalism as it is practiced is disgraceful. When a man obviously unqualified for the presidency runs for the office, is not fully, or even attempted to be, vetted by journalists because of their inherent biases and is then voted into office by those even more biased. These supposed “journalists” will stoop at nothing to smear anyone they disagree with. Have they learned this while in school? Does this mean that all “journalists” will act the same, especially if they advance to the editorship of a newspaper? The answer is yes.
The cabal called ‘JournoList’ is alive and well.
For the almost 49 years har I lived in Northern Virginia, I subscribed to the Washington Post. It used to be a good paper. I became a little suspicious when the comatose Bill Casey was interviewed by Woodward but the story about Romney is just beyone the pale. Among other things, it is not truthful but it does help promote the current anti bullying agenda. I am very much opposed to this movement and feel a little bullying is not going to hurt and it may even boost the anti-wimp status of this country.
I just returned from the grocery store where I have the current anti-obese agenda thrust at me in every aisle. Not only that but I am even told which light bulbs to buy. I didn’t think to hoard the Halogen, long lasting bulbs I buy for my garage so I won’t have to risk my life when changing the bulbs as often as they burn out. If there had been a coal store on my way home, I would have bought a ton or two. We had a coal furnace when I was growing up and my mother, who lived to be 95, suffered no ill effects. I see nothing wrong with coal as long as no miners are killed in its extraction.
I don’t like anything much about our current prez, his wife. or Veepy (I will never forget the sight of Biden with those lonely hairs growing out of the front of his scalp.
As an unwimpy American, I really hate being told what to do and how to feel.
This is simply a jobs program for clairvoyant fact checkers, who have had trouble obtaining work.
This is a terrific deconstruction of a Post “hit.” It should tell you how desperate some people are getting – for a story, and for any available cudgel now that Obama seems pretty close to self-destructing.
It’s not hard to see what is happening here, IMHO a leftist “news” outlet was given some campaign ammunition to smear their opponent and like all good Democrat supporting journalists they published it without proper vetting aka Dan Rather and CBS’ embellishments about George Bush. And just like OBAMACARE, which was most likely written in the nineties, this was propably written by the leftists months ago in anticipation of running their campaign through the Obama left-wing media machine.