"It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

Obama says he's okay with gay marriage...

...as Romney's bully past comes out

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us...es-romney.html

Hey big surprise, he was a d1ck in high school! Er, sorry, prep school, my bad.

Welp, there goes whatever was left of the youth vote.

Who'da thunk.

PFnV

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

This is about as relevant as Obama smoking dope and doing coke whenhe was in school. funny how that story just happens to come out within a day of the Obama flip flop funny coindince.....

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

Hey, I have no doubt that the guy Mitt bullied thought "hey come to think of it this would be a nice time to talk about my old school chum." Karma's a b1tch.

- "Let Detroit go bankrupt"
- "likes being able to fire people"
- Won primary with scads of money poured into attack ads
- Turns out he was a bully in high school...

People wonder who the "real" Mitt is. I agree it's irrelevant. In fact, it might even be good if you're thinking of how he'd perform vis a vis other governments, if you perceive our international relationships to be inherently adversarial.

But if you're looking at how well he'll connect with you, when you put this together with what else we've seen, you wonder

1) whether he's over that yet, and
2) whether he's looking at you to take the next haircut.

And that's just for the general population.

For an 18 year old, a 20 year old, a 25 year old, high school's not a distant memory, and they're part of a generation for whom bullying's not a sort of a constant that always was and always will be -- especially when it's got overtones of gay-bashing. (Romney denies that aspect, but is remembered to say "atta girl" when this kid spoke up in class.)

For me, at 50, I figure he's channeled that into more productive targets, but has profited from the mean streak that earlier went into bullying. Nobody's perfect, sure, but he's channeled it into productive pursuits, or, as you say, it's "ancient history"

For a kid just out of high school, I would think you'd be thinking he's just like that butthole _________ at my school. God, could you imagine that buttwipe being president?

PFnV

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

Back when Romney (and you & I) were in high school, it was common to give feminine boys a hard time and call them names. I'll admit I did it and so did many. Being gay was not acceptable back then socially. Everything must be judged from the time period which it ocurred, not by today's standards.

Obama was against gay marriage and he flip/flopped....so you're now ok with flip/floppers? cool!!!!!

BTW...I was bully in elementary school & junior high....and?

O-bummer still won't get my vote this time...

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

Mittens 'Lord of the Flies' moment.

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

It's political operative season ... :popcorn:

Time to earn their keep ... :p

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

I'm one of the the only guys on here who couldn't "earn my keep" as a "political operative," Icy. If Hilary's campaign was paying you to post in 08, that's your business. Nobody's campaign was paying me then, and they're not paying me now. I value my real job way too much.

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

this is news?

he's a republican, that type of **** is what they do...i mean dems do it too but ****, that party mastered it

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

that i'll agree on, kids are retarded.....some grow up

Re: "It Gets Better," Mitt gets worse
 

... and in that case, you were a dipsh1t. I had plenty of my own dipsh1t moments in various ways, and perhaps I don't give myself as much of a pass. Perhaps that's why I feel okay that I don't give everybody else a pass.

"Cool with flip-flopping now?" Meh. It's really hard to give much credence to the publicly reticent version of Obama, while he was compiling the most gay-rights-friendly presidency in history. He knew it wasn't time, the LBGT community cut him the slack, and those who believe in LBGT rights saw that and weren't terribly concerned. As our righties apoplectically shouted from the rooftops, he declined enforcement of DOMA, he smacked down Don't Ask Don't Tell, and apparently he took a number of other actions the LBGT community liked. So on the specific question of gay marriage he finally said the words, but his actions have been pretty LBGT-friendly throughout his presidency.

Romney flip flops a lot, but I don't much care. It's where he's landed (as of this week) that is most pertinent. We know what we've got with Obama - a centrist who feels he can't be more progressive. He's probably right. With Romney, he's bent over backwards to be wronger and wronger. In Mass he said he'd be more LBGT-friendly than Kennedy, and back when he was socially liberal, maybe he was. But he tried so mightily to become the cave man that the conservative base wants that he won't get his tenuous base to the polls if he tries that "left of Ted Kennedy" line again. He's trapped in a position he'll try to weasel into "enlightened enough" for the independents... and now the Cons' recent favorite wedge issue, gay marriage, is something the cons don't want to touch. They know they're wrong, but they can't say that without losing a whole wing of their movement (social conservatives).

I do think Obama hedges more than I'd like sometimes, as with the gay marriage issue. But I've "evolved" on it too. I use to think "you know you can just have the same full rights and not offend the church lady by saying marriage." That's when I thought of the issue as purely pragmatic: who can be in the room with the dying spouse? Who can make medical decisions? Things like that. It wasn't until I saw it as a civil rights issue rather than a pragmatic issue that I started to see the injustice of making one kind of marriage -- the kind you dare not call marriage -- as a slap in the face to the people involved. I'm part of the big mass in the middle that finally went "ohhhhhh now I get it." I think basically Obama pretends he was part of that, but he seems to have supported gay marriage before he was "evolving on it."

So that part speaks to political cynicism just like Romney shows. I do think it's core to who Romney is (flip flopping) and tangential/tactical in Obama's case. I do think Obama wants to see this society evolve, and part of the proof of that is how he got the LBGT community the things he could even while he said he was "evolving" on the marriage issue.

Re: bullying - The fact that society's catching up with the inflicting of misery on other human beings in the school setting doesn't change that we knew right from wrong back in the day. We did, you know it too. People are people, and treating people right is basic to any good parenting, religious or otherwise. I knew kids from religious backgrounds who'd stick their necks out and be the one to actually speak up against bullying. I did too. Just leave the pariah kid alone -- never heard that?

Just because we're paying attention now doesn't mean it wasn't wrong then.

PFnV