Current mood:	time to hoist the black flag
Current music:	Owl City - Fireflies

Hate crime = "Hijinks"
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Willard "Mitt" Romney has faux-pologized (sorta-kinda) for assaulting one of his prep school classmates in the 60s. The classmate in question, John Lauber, was assumed to be gay and was targeted for having "long" hair that he'd dyed blond. Romney, then 18 (?) gathered a group of friends, held Lauber down, and cut off his hair.

The apology:

"I don't remember that incident," he said. "And I'll tell you I certainly don't believe that I ... thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case."

But he acknowledged playing pranks and teasing other students, and apologized for those that went "too far" -- while noting he is "a very different person" now.

"Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize," Romney said.

"For me, it's about 48 years ago, so, again, if there's anything I said that's offensive to someone I certainly am sorry about that, very deeply sorry about that. But there was no harm intended."

Romney apologizes for high school 'pranks,' says doesn't recall hair-cutting incident

He doesn't remember it, but is sure it wasn't homophobic, and is sorry if you took his youthful "hijinks" the wrong way.

I can't wait to see what Gail Collins makes of this.

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	maev_connacht 2012-05-14 12:42 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, so, I moved out of MA about ten years ago for college and never came back, so I've been wondering. How did this happen? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

agent_hyatt
2012-05-14 07:41 pm UTC (link)

I've lived in MA as long as I can remember, and I have no idea. Mom says it's because we had a bunch of Republican governors in a row; the first, Weld, was pretty popular, but then he resigned and his lieutenant Cellucci took over, then he left to be an ambassador and is lieutenant took over, and she wasn't popular. She didn't run for re-election, so Romney had the Republican nomination, and he was pretty well-known. Dunno if there were points against Romney's Democratic opponent.

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	maev_connacht 2012-05-14 07:49 pm UTC (link)
	Well, at least that kind of makes a little more sense. I remember Weld being pretty decent. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	agent_hyatt 2012-05-14 07:52 pm UTC (link)
	That's what my mom said. But then his successors got more and more partisan, and eventually we decided to elect a Democrat instead of a Republican who'd only pay lip service to Weld's legacy while pushing the party agenda. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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