Romney apologizes for bullying boy in high school days

Enlarge Image

'I'm a very different person than I was in high school, of course,' Romney says. (CARLOS OSORIO / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney admitted Thursday he "did some dumb things" in high school, issuing a tepid apology over startling revelations he bullied and physically accosted a classmate who was presumed gay.

His remarks came in the wake of a Washington Post story that quotes several former Romney schoolmates by name as they recall the presidential wannabe holding down a classmate and forcibly cutting his long, bleached-blond bangs after disparaging the boy's appearance.

"Back in high school, I did some dumb things," Romney said during a Fox News Radio interview, although he added he doesn't remember the incident.

"And if anyone was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that."

In 1965, at least five students at Cranbrook all-boys high school in Michigan witnessed the attack, according to the Post report.

Romney, then the teenage son of the Michigan governor in his final year of high school, was outraged by his classmate's appearance, led a cheering gang of students in an attack against the boy, pinned him to the ground and hacked off locks of his hair.

"He can't look like that," Romney told a close friend at the time. "That's wrong. Just look at him!"

The timing of the story couldn't be worse for the Romney campaign, appearing a day after President Barack Obama became the first president in U.S. history to throw his support behind same-sex marriage. His administration is being celebrated by civil libertarians and the country's gay community for taking a bold stance on what's considered a modern-day civil rights battle.

Romney, long opposed to same-sex marriage, tried to do some damage control about his attack on the late John Lauber during his radio interview.

"I'm a very different person than I was in high school, of course, but I'm glad I learned as much as I did during those high school years," he said.

"I'm quite a different guy now. I'm married, have five sons, five daughters-in-law and now 18 grandchildren. There's going to be some that want to talk about high school. Well, if you really think that's important, be my guest."

A classmate's sexuality, he added, was the "furthest thing" from his mind at the time.

ABC News reported the Romney campaign was reaching out to other old high school pals on Thursday, asking them to come forward with "supporting remarks."

But the hits just kept coming for the Romney campaign as video emerged of another former classmate remembering him not so fondly.

"I have to say that I've had trouble taking him seriously as a candidate because I have this memory of him as a 14-year-old boy who was kind of a jerk, the way most 14-year-old boys are, including myself," conservative pundit Michael Barone, now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said at a recent event.

Romney was never punished for the '65 incident, the Post reported.

Lauber, who reportedly remained traumatized by the attack for years afterward, was "a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney... walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye," the Post reported.

Romney rounded up some friends, including Matthew Friedemann, who's quoted liberally in the story.

"They came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors," the Post reported.

The boy disappeared from school for a few days after the attack, returning with his cropped hair back to its natural brunette hue, the Post reported. He was later kicked out of the school for smoking a cigarette.

When a witness to the attack ran into Lauber years later in Chicago, he was still shaken by it. "It was horrible," Lauber reportedly told the witness, David Seed. Lauber died in 2004.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 11, 2012 A19