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TagsBY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Ann Romney has said in interviews that there is a wild and crazy man inside her husband Mitt just waiting to come out. But he may have been out years ago when Romney was in high school.
It has been alleged that the Republican presidential front-runner once bullied a classmate at Cranbrook, a private school in Michigan.
According to a report in the Washington Post, student John Lauber was wearing bleached-blond hair that fell over one eye, and Romney did not approve of it. Romney’s friend Matthew Friedemann said Romney led a group of students to a room where they tackled Lauber and pinned down while Romney cut his hair.
Romney told Fox News that he didn't remember the haircutting incident, but didn't deny that it happened either. He insisted that he didn't know Lauber was gay and said, "That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s,"adding that Lauber "didn't come out of the closet until years later."
According to the Los Angeles Times, Romney said, “High school days, I did stupid things. … And if anyone was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that." He said that some of his pranks "might have gone too far."
`A lawyer who was a classmate of Romney spoke about the bullying incident. “It’s a haunting memory,” Phillip Maxwell said to ABC News. “When you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it.”
Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, and called their group a “pack of dogs.” He said he was “haunted” by the attack.
Two of Romney’s other classmates had a different opinion. “He would never do anything mean spirited. Clownish, yes. Never mean,” said Richard Moon. John French said, “Mitt never had a malicious bone in his body – trying to characterize him as a bully is absurd.”
Romney said he was opposed to gay marriage, but felt that states should be allowed to grant domestic partnership rights to same-sex couples, along with the right to adopt children.
