I'm offended by the use of the word weasel in the title.
I don't know what to think about this. On the one hand, it was high school. When I was in high school swirlies and wedgies were the norm. There were real bullies and then there were mob bullies -- kids who are normally nice but when in a group give in to peer pressure and do stupid things.
But most of us have grown up since then. Are we really going to hold someone accountable for misbehaving at 15 or whatever age he was? I used to shoplift at that age. And do drugs. And got into fights. 40 years later do I need to answer for those sins?
Granted forcibly cutting someone's hair is above and beyond a wedgie.
It's not the incident itself which was bad enough. In high school many people act like horrible jerks, regret it later and try to make up for it. It's in the latter area that Romney is falling down on the job.
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The description of this as hijinks and pranks is, how to put it, disingenuous at best.
I agree with these. The bullying thing sucks, and I say this as someone who is quite familiar with being on the bad end of bullying (and can't claim to be wholly innocent on the other end of it either), but if I ran into one of the guys who used to sucker punch me and make me hate school when I was younger, both of us as adults, I doubt I'd even bring it up, unless the person just showed zero evidence that they had changed. And then I'd just think he was a grown asshole. The man is 65-years-old now. Who he was when he was in high school doesn't matter to me much in terms of choosing him as a president, unless he did something felonious.
That said, the shitty apology does bug me. Shitty apologies, particularly in these situations, are inexcusable. This isn't even something recent. There's no real political benefit to giving a quarter-assed apology here. "I did some stupid, awful things in high school. That was years ago, but I still wish I could go back and smack myself for some of the horrible things I did, and I'm sincerely sorry to everyone I hurt. I've obviously grown up considerably since then and changed in a number of ways, but I can't excuse those past actions and, again, I sincerely apologize for those inexcusable, cowardly actions."
Boom. Done. No more story, nothing to write about. I cooked that up in like seven seconds. It's so easy. Now, I'm realistic. I understand that sometimes the "non-pology" is the more prudent career choice, even if it reflects poorly on you as a person. But this is just a silly, unnecessary, dumb decision. This should have been the easiest apology in the world. This apology should have a Chris Paul alley-oop delivered perfectly at the rim with no defenders in site for an easy dunk, and he tried to turn it into a fadeaway jumpshot. Why?