Family of alleged Romney victim angry over exploitation of story

Hotair ^ | 05/11/2012 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

The family of the eight-years-deceased alleged victim of a cruel prank by a teenaged Mitt Romney reacted angrily to the Washington Post story yesterday — but not for the reasons one might imagine. Calling the Washington Post story “factually inaccurate,” the sisters of the late John Lauber lashed out at the Post for using him to “further a political agenda” (via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit):

The older sister of Mitt Romney’s former high school classmate said she has no knowledge of any bullying incident involving her brother and the GOP presidential candidate.

Christine Lauber of South Bend, Ind., had not seen the Washington Post’s story that described an incident when Mitt Romney bullied her brother, but said she was aware of the story. The incident centered around Romney allegedly holding the scissors to help cut the hair of John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair.

Neither of his sisters had heard of the incident from their brother, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That’s not their main complaint, though:

Betsy Lauber, one of John Lauber’s three sisters, spoke with ABC News Tuesday night regarding the accuracy of the story.

“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,” she said.

Christine Lauber echoed her sister:

She added she and her sisters will likely put out a statement later via a family attorney.

“If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she said with tears in her eyes.

ABC notes that both sisters were quoted in the WaPo article. It seems that they were unaware of the real subject matter, or at least the way the Post intended to use their recollections of their brother. It might be interesting to see what else an attorney might have to say about the matter.

[Smokin' Joe]

This is EXACTLY the same sort of BS that was thrown at Herman Cain!

DING! DING! DING!

WE HAVE A WINNER!

[Smokin' Joe]

First of all, it doesn't say Romney cut his hair, he just "held the scissors"

I think we need to get right to the meat of the matter.

Okay, he allegedly held the scissors.

Did he run with them?

[HiTech RedNeck]

AND, for that maybe 2-3% Obama gains, he grosses out far more that still have some skosh of decency left.

Well, this did not promise to be a pretty fight, and it hasn’t been, but so far it looks like it’s characterized far more by Democrat harakiri than by meaningful damage to Mitt Romney.

[rlmorel]

Sigh. Everything is a crime, or will be, eventually.

Eventually, someone will come after me for snapping girls bra straps and giving guys wedgies.

Then I’ll have to have someone go after the people who gave me swirlies.

And they’ll have to go after someone who called them nasty names.

And THOSE people will have to go after someone who stole their lunch money.

Hell, I am going to have to go after everyone who made fun of my taped up glasses.

What a nation of pansies we have become.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Looking for the first political cartoon that shows Mitt Romney dashing up with the scissors... to give Barack Obama a haircut.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If Barack Obama wanted to do more to get new sympathy for Mitt, I doubt if he could if he planned it.

[GSWarrior]

Tau seems more like a loose cannon speaking truth to power....or something like that. I’d expect a Media Matters loon to be a little more subtle.

[rlmorel]

"...I don’t remember if we forcibly cut somebody’s hair..."

LOL, you mean like the guy in the movie "Jackass" who sneaks up on people in their group with a pair of electric clippers and takes a retangular clump of hair out before they figure it out, or the ones where all the hair comes off?

Of course, in the pre-politically correct days in the military, there was always some kind of hazing that was accepted. The stuff I saw, nobody got hurt, but we could have.

There was one initiation where a bunch of people would wrestle a person to the ground and smear him with a thick, gooey black molybdenum based grease that was nearly impossible to get off with anything other than a butter knife and jet fuel. This was your initiation to "The Line Shack" where the plane captains had to work for a year or two.

Basically, everyone would lie in wait, and when the person would walk in everyone jumped them and wrestled them to the ground. If you were the object, you were expected to put up a struggle.

The harder the struggle and the longer it took, the more respect you got, and size was factored in. Once done, that was it, and you were expected to participate in other "greasings" as they called them, though you didn't have to, and nobody made a fuss if you didn't.

I never saw anyone get hurt, and to this day that amazes me, because there were often desks and chairs being overturned, and fairly violent struggles as the scrum of people went back and forth in a compartment made of steel.

There were a few guys who just went limp and let themselves get the grease. They were repeatedly targeted for greasing.

One night on the ship, I was walking to the line shack, and as I approached a hatch, the upper part of a human body suddenly lunged into the passageway, then as the person gripped the edges was pulled back. I only saw that half as I approached. The guy yelled out "Help! Help me!" and as I passed, I saw a group of guys, laughing and grinning, pulling him inexorably back into the compartment. One could only imagine...

I did see one incident that, to this day, impresses me.

We had a young Airman Apprentice, Timothy Narumaya, arrive in our squadron one day. He was about 5'4", and oddly enough, we had heard a few stories about him through the grapevine as he progressed through the training squadron.

This was the guy (picture is blurry from the cruise book):

They said he was some ridiculous thing like a 10th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do (I remember someone saying that, but I don't even know if that is a real ranking...you know how those types of stories are!) Well, he didn't disappoint.

That guy knew something, and we saw him in the hangar bay one day sparring with the top seargent in the Marine detachment, who was a physically impressive and big guy. (He was later the top ranking enlisted Marine killed in the Beruit barracks bombing...GySgt Douglass.)

Anyway, the guy KNEW stuff, and giving away height and weight, was impressive to us watching.

So, one day he goes up to the flight deck, and we were all lying in wait when he came down to jump him and "grease" him.

The hatch opened, he walked in and saw us all standing there looking at him. He said: "You can do what you want, but I won't be responsible if anyone goes to Sick Bay."

Nobody moved a muscle...:)

Forever after, everyone called him "Bruce" not "Tim"...

[rlmorel]

Agreed. I gotta admit, it has me conflicted, like everything about this election.

[john mirse]

I believe that Obama has to be voted out for the good of the country.

That being said, I believe that what Romney did to that poor fellow high school student was terrible, if the story is true. If the story is true, Romney should try to do something to make peace with himself and the boy's family.

As I thought about this Romney story, it caused me to shudder a little bit as I recalled how I and some other boys in our small private school many years ago picked on this one unattractive girl in our class over and over all through high school.

I can't or don't want to know why we did it or why we somehow picked her out so many years ago to be the target of our teasing, teasing that sometimes turned into terrible ridicule, and, which, looking back, may have often brought the poor girl to tears. To this day, I feel bad about what we did to that poor innocent girl.

I remember that she was shy and vulnerable. I can barely remember her name, but I could easily look at my yearbook and find her name, but I don't want to. I guess I am too ashamed to look at her picture and her name again.

I'm just an average person who will never run for public office and who will never be a famous person, although my family has friends who are public officials and other friends who are nationally known persons.

So what terrible damage I may have done to the high school girl's life many years ago will not come out in public like Romney's story came out in public, because I will never run for public office.

I don't know what I would tell Romney if I was advising him on this matter.

I might tell him that if the story is true, he should admit it and apologize to the boy's family, and maybe the boy's family and the public---especially those of us who have bullied fellow schoolmates during our high school days and are now very sorry for what we did--will forgive him and let him move on.

[Mamzelle]

There are subtle Media Matters loons here, but you have to be a pretty old Freeper and an teacher of rhetoric and writing to see them. And then you can't really prove it. But I believe some MM types have got a hold of some old sign on dates and are shilling for Obama by trying to suppress conservative turnout.

They've got piles of money. If I were they, I'd certainly do it.

[Albertafriend]

I guess all the rock band players and all their fans and the war-protesters must have been gay then because there sure was a lot of long hair around in those days. It was the new “in” thing.

[wtc911]

I guess all the rock band players and all their fans and the war-protesters must have been gay then because there sure was a lot of long hair around in those days. It was the new “in” thing.

___________________________________

Not in 1965.

[SamAdams76]

Correct, long hair on men did not become prevalent until the “summer of love” in 1967. That’s when The Beatles started growing their hair long. Of course, The Beatles were considered to have long hair when they hit the scene in 1964 but their “mop-hair” style of that 1964=66 period would be considered somewhat short today.

[dfwgator]

The Beatles were considered to have long hair when they hit the scene in 1964

Moe was way ahead of the curve

[Covenantor]

Correct, long hair on men did not become prevalent until the "summer of love" in 1967. That's when The Beatles started growing their hair long. Of course, The Beatles were considered to have long hair when they hit the scene in 1964 but their "mop-hair" style of that 1964=66 period would be considered somewhat short today.

Exactly so. In the 1963-1966 era here in the DC Metro area if a boy's hair started to touch his ears, he was a "hairtree". My first thought of the alleged victim's "long bleached hair" was that he was a "surfer wannabee" and fan of the Beach Boys, Jan an Dean, etc. Easy to forget that they were the chartbusters, soon to be displaced by the British Invasion.

The local surfer wannabees combed their hair forward and many had DIY bleach jobs using hydrogen peroxide and Clorox to do the job. Even coined the term cloroxide. They sure as hell weren't going to buy Breck products at that time. That would have been sissy as all get out.

White slacks and awning striped shirts and no socks completed the outfit.

Madras button down shirts were very popular for the guys and Villager outfits for the girls. Now and again some young buck would feel rebellious and wear a pair of black or wheat colored Lee's and Dingo boots. Friday's were coat and tie.

[Covenantor]

Correct, long hair on men did not become prevalent until the "summer of love" in 1967. That's when The Beatles started growing their hair long. Of course, The Beatles were considered to have long hair when they hit the scene in 1964 but their "mop-hair" style of that 1964=66 period would be considered somewhat short today.

Exactly so. In the 1963-1966 era here in the DC Metro area if a boy's hair started to touch his ears, he was a "hairtree". My first thought of the alleged victim's "long bleached hair" was that he was a "surfer wannabee" and fan of the Beach Boys, Jan an Dean, etc. Easy to forget that they were the chartbusters, soon to be displaced by the British Invasion.

The local surfer wannabees combed their hair forward and many had DIY bleach jobs using hydrogen peroxide and Clorox to do the job. Even coined the term cloroxide. They sure as hell weren't going to buy Breck products at that time. That would have been sissy as all get out.

White slacks and awning striped shirts and no socks completed the outfit.

Madras button down shirts were very popular for the guys and Villager outfits for the girls. Now and again some young buck would feel rebellious and wear a pair of black or wheat colored Lee's and Dingo boots. Friday's were coat and tie.

[wtc911]

Yep, more crews and DAs than anything else in '65. The surfer look had started to creep in, combing the front down on the forehead instead of back, and even that was done in small steps.

By us guys wore white Levis or chinos (khakis) (always short) with shirt-jacs or madras shirts, desert boots with white socks and a wind-breaker with a racing stripe.

[CitizenM]

What a nation of pansies we have become.

You mean...what a nation of pansies the Liberals want us to become. The cry baby liberal Democrats are always moaning that something wasn't fair, or nice, or racist, or anti-someone, or not politically correct. While they do and say things much worse than the people they criticize.

It is more obvious every day that there are no grown ups in the Democrat party.

[rlmorel]

You are correct. I stand corrected on that point!

Thank you.

The LAST grown up in the Democrat Party was Zell Miller. He turned out the lights when he left. Now it is all children of the Sixties.