It is hard to erase from your memory the mean things you did to a classmate as a teenager, even 40 years later. So, thanks to Mitt Romney, I am facing up and finally apologizing to DH for inexcusable behavior back in middle school.
But somehow it appears the Republican Presidential nominee-apparent just can't recall the bullying episode he led that is seared into the memories of five of his high school friends and classmates, during which they treated a boy so badly that one of them recalls it as "vicious." Another ran into the victim nearly 30 years after the incident and was moved to personally apologize. Yet another confesses he still feels remorse about it.
I have talked to a number of friends since this story surfaced, and almost all of us have a guilty recollection. We haven't forgotten that we were mean to a classmate during our middle school or teen years. Decades later, we wish we could go back and atone.
So it must be a very special kind of person who can either blissfully forgot such behavior, or, alternatively, be the leader of a bullying posse and recall it fondly as just "hijinks and pranks." Even Draco Malfoy remembered his bad behavior and became remorseful as he grew up.
Deflecting responsibility for your own unpleasant actions away from yourself also takes a special kind of personality. Even more unique is the type of personality that allows a person to view the wreaking of havoc on others as a good, maybe even heroic, thing to do.
This is the character type that turns the firing of people into the punch line of jokes. The type of personality that leads one to carve up a company, leave a town devastated and revel in it as a success. The type of self-possession that views churning through companies while shedding hundreds of jobs as an application of "creative destruction."
And maybe it is also the type of world view that enables someone to see cutting basic benefits (like hot lunches and food assistance for the working poor) and dozens of other lifelines needed by our most vulnerable neighbors so that the wealthiest among us can get more tax cuts as a good thing.
None of us can really see into Mitt Romney's heart. And some will just file the bullying incidents away as youthful indiscretion.
But at the end of the day, each of us will be asked to entrust the colossal powers of our country in the hands of one person. We will ask that person to make choices that will call on character time and again. Some of these choices may put our children's lives on the line.
Are we really willing to entrust these lives to someone whose character may not let him really see the impact of his actions on others?
David M. Abromowitz is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
I can understand that a bully would not remember just another bully moment. Why would that one moment stand out?
There is more I could add about the bully life style. Most thinking people already know.
That's the kind of people who are creeping in the shadows behind the GOP candidates. The ones who made sure that McCain couldn't clench the support of the party. He was too moral, too strong willed, and too stubborn to simply hand money over to the people in control. These people who are willing to denigrate the suffering of veterans and torture victims, and who are happy to steal the money and safety of the middle class and working class. That's who runs the Grand Old Party these days. And all thanks to Elihu Root's reforms and Ayn Rand's political philosophy.
was it so commonplace in his life to be a bully that it didnt stand out?
ive been asking that question since i heard, i dont remember Ha Ha
They would matter to him, because they effect him personally.
None of the five students who have been haunted for decades by their role in Mitt's vicious "prank" mention any type of punishment or consequence for the act.
Nothing happened to them for what they did.
Mitt, the entitled child of wealthy and well-placed parents, was left to his own devises. No one ever expected him to pay any price for his actions. It cost him nothing, so it made no impression.
Your actions were so despicable that your fellow bullies remember them with remorse and embarassment, Mitt! That isn't mere 'hijinks'.
No, if Mitt had come out and said, "I was a bully in high school, and I really hope nobody follows my example." or, "I was wrong then, this is how I hurt a kid, and this is how I learned NOT TO DO THE SAME THING AGAIN", that would be different. But he persecuted a kid for being different, and he campaigns for prejudice against people who are different in the same way. What has he learned? He has learned, apparently, that being the bully WORKS.
And hopefully, in November, the American voters can convince him that America does not like bullies.
On July 4th/Thanksgiving I would like to see this mentioned in the same words about the forefathers and occupiers of this nation in the same sentence with Native Americans. In that one sentence you hone in on the national psyche of a segment of the population that's quite proud of what was done to get this nation. They are quite proud of the bloodshed and stealing and violation of treaties and the overall suffering imposed. Of all the holidays listed there is not one to honor the Native Indians who were slaughtered needlessly to start these colonies/states/nation or for the ones who've sacrificed their lives in our wars.
So tired of this arrogance and blind righteousness about this. Of COURSE Romney can have this attitude, it's the AMERICAN WAY and he embodies the moral blindness and mental illness inherited by millions of Americans who ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT THEIR ANCESTORS KILLED OFF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE TO GET THIS LAND....AND THEY ENJOYED DOING IT. If Native Americans were to write a horror story they wouldn't have to imagine anything. They just have to TELL WHAT HAPPENED. This NATIONAL AMNESIA REGARDING THE TRUTH of bullying people off the face of the earth IS the cultural norm.
If I did something like that. I'd remember. Everyone else involved did.