"Yes, we do"
Posted on 05/11/2012 7:01:12 AM PDT by 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.
The Washington Post is read by criminals and welfare cheats.
“I got my ass kicked 30 years ago”...yeah, I kinda see his point.
But hey, let’s drop this so we can get back to the fascinating details of Obama’s formative years...uh, I mean his college years....Or, uh, his activities at law school...his composite girlfriends...where he was born...
Just sayin.
This is about the same level of reporting as that instituted by Dan Rather and his “fake but accurate” report of how George W. Bush was AWOL from his Air National Guard duties.
Just more “fake but accurate” reporting from a source with an agenda.
Another huge nothingburger.
I wonder if they'll continue to do this all the way thru the election.
Fake, but accurate......geez where have we heard this one before?
“This is about the same level of reporting as that instituted by Dan Rather and his “fake but accurate” report of how George W. Bush was AWOL from his Air National Guard duties.”
I heard his ad for his new book on the radio. It was the sound of a desperate, old pathetic man still clinging to his story that it was true.
Hey liberal Media!Howsabout a teeny peek into the life and times of young Obama, Sotro or whatever his name is?
Yeah, but a lot of that $hit sticks . . . libtards gotta' have something to hang their hats on.
I'm sure we'll learn that Romney's bullying drove Lauber to alcoholism.
Ya' know, it's the seriousness of the charge! Yeah, that's it.
All these media jerks are doing are forcing people like me who can’t stand Romney to consider voting for him.
If he’d suddenly returned home with a hair cut that was very different from what he started out with, they’d have asked and learned about the alleged incident. This is beginning o look like the Duke Rape Case.
Of course, ad nausium.
Romney can’t remember whether or not he assaulted someone with scissors? I clearly recall that I’ve never assaulted anyone with scissors.
Is Romney so dimwitted that he lacks the capacity to remember whether or not he assaulted someone with scissors?
Or, has Romney committed so many assaults that he can’t remember the details of many of them?
Or, is Romney just a liar?
Romney gives us wonderful choices, doesn’t he?
Yeah, I wish he'd just shut up. Now Romnesty says he agrees with homosexuals adopting babies . . . this in light of the fact that there are thousands of heterosexual (normal) couples trying to adopt, but having to go to China, Russian, S. America to find children. This also in light of the fact that we ruthlessly murder 3,300 American babies in this country EVERY DAY.
It's going to be all I can do to vote for this democrat like I had to be forced to vote for Dole, Bush, Sr., and McLame.
Better that he just shut his mouth and let the homo-in-chief do all the talking.
Welcome to FR. How much does Media Matters pay per post these days? I hear the running rate is $.56 a post...
"It might be interesting to see what else an attorney might have to say about the matter."
Nice. Just what an outfit that's bleeding cash needs- a costly lawsuit.
On the other hand, how could Romney NOT have any memory of anything like that he might have done?
I suspect something happened, but not a haircut with scissors. Maybe just the threat took place and now it is being blown out of proportion by the Libs.
Joining up just to add that does seem pretty obvious doesn’t were are the troll photo posters?
This is EXACTLY the same sort of BS that was thrown at Herman Cain! Fit’s the media MO perfectly!
I take it you’re a Romney fan.
Thanks for the warm welcome.
“First they came for Herman Cain, and I did nothing because I didn’t support Cain.”
I’ll live with that. I want that demonic, thieving, SOB in the WH out, and if all I get to replace him with is Mr. Bland RINO...call me “fan.”
Exactly, it wouldn't just be a hair cut, it would be a butcher job that would have to be fixed.
Exactly!
They can’t find ANY of Obozo’s records but they can make up all sorts of stuff about ANY Republican!
His cocaine use...
Or, the sheared lad went to a real barber right away to have it salvaged into something reasonable — but again the sisters would have seen.
Why would Romney apologize for a snip job he didn’t remember giving? Unless it was truly trivial, like one lock of the hair.
What the heck kind of claim is this? First of all, it doesn't say Romney cut his hair, he just "held the scissors". Whatever does that mean? The it says "presumed to be gay"? By who? The teens who did this? The promoters of the story? In 65, having long hair certainly didn't mean homosexual.
This all sounds like a lot of BS to me.
There it has been corrected.
To be fair, politicians (especially those who are running against a media darling) are asked "out in left field" questions all the time. The safest thing to say is "I don't recall" until you can regroup mentally and figure out what the question is actually about.
If Romney firmly denied this, then it turns out something did happen that was a little bit, sorta like the story (but not really), and he hadn't remembered it, then he'll look like a fool, a liar, or both.
I hear you and I think your view makes some sense.
But, what would you expect him to say if he was asked whether or not he raped a girl named Joan or molested a 6 year old boy? “I just don’t recall that”?
“Sir, there’s a report that you held up a liquor store when you were 17. Would you like to comment?”. “Well, I just can’t recall that, but if I did, I’m very sorry.”
There are times when you need to say, “No, that never happened.” That’s what you must say, if it never happened.
But, I do appreciate your point.
Held the scissors... as in “Hey Mitt, bring us some scissors for this long hair weirdo!” “Roger that, here they are...” and then a struggle ensued that didn’t involve Mitt and the guy got away.
And, even is something did happen...in those days homosexuality was not something kids were openly discussing. The kid's long hair...and how that was so different from the short hair boys wore then, might have been the issue...not his sexual orientation (if that was even known). Long hair was just starting to be in style for a lot of boys/men in those days and not just gays. Actually, back in the '60's gays were still very careful not to show or do anything to attract attention to their sexual orientation.
Heck, I remember in grade school when I had long pig tails and the boy behind me used to try to tie them together and always teased me that he was going to cut them off. Perhaps the kid in Romney's school had his hair pulled back in a ponytail and they teased him and just threatened to cut it, or even snipped some of it. The kid might have lost some hair, but no assault type incident occurred. That would be more like a stupid prank, but not done because the kid was gay.
Still, Romney should have a clear memory of exactly what did happen. A person just does not forget something like that if they did it, or what was done. So I don't think that we are hearing the full truth from either side about this story.
The hypothesis that Mitt did bring or carry scissors, but then a struggle followed that didn’t involve Mitt and the guy got away unshorn or maybe with one unnoticeable snip taken off, seems to fit what everybody close to it, including Mitt, is reporting so far.
I know about the long hair. When the Beatles splashed on the scene all of a sudden all boys who wanted to be cool wanted a Beatle haircut. I did. Well into the seventies :-).
Don’t you love the stereotypical homo race baiting of the tolerant left?
if you got high cheekbones, you got to be an Indian.
if you got long hair, you must be gay.
why haven’t we heard a backlash from the republican log cabin guys or the rats’ pink underground?
It is not clear from what source the allegedly sheared boy was later reported to have been “gay.”
But this does bid fair to come jumping right back upon the rabid media and bite it back. Calling somebody gay who wasn’t is still considered a gross insult.
Yet the hair cutting incident is not far removed from what would have been standard fare for pranking and hazing in high school 50 years ago. I guarantee you every politician that age and older from a wealthy background, would have to say they don’t recall when asked a question like that. This includes both Dems and Pubs.
You would be sitting there thinking, Okay we duct taped, penny-locked, made a kid run around the dorm naked, I don’t remember if we forcibly cut somebody’s hair.
Romney said he didn't recall the act. The sisters don't recall their brother mentioning it (even though a sudden haircut administered under duress would likely be somewhat obvious)...
And the alleged 'victim' is long dead.
Pretty tight story for the usual media suspects...and of course, the claim of 'maybe a homo' is laid on the deceased, who isn't present to deny any of it.
Lovely.
More pandering to the GLBTs, with a 'victim' allegedly abused by the nasty breeders...
So he gets a lot of money (Duh Won), and 2-3% (if that) of the vote...He must be sucking up to the gaymedia, or buying some hush (about his personal affairs).
DING! DING! DING!
WE HAVE A WINNER!
I think we need to get right to the meat of the matter.
Okay, he allegedly held the scissors.
Did he run with them?
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.
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.
Looking for the first political cartoon that shows Mitt Romney dashing up with the scissors... to give Barack Obama a haircut.
If Barack Obama wanted to do more to get new sympathy for Mitt, I doubt if he could if he planned it.
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.
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"...
Agreed. I gotta admit, it has me conflicted, like everything about this election.
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.
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