What Romney the Teenager Says About Romney the Man

Courtesy of Cranbrook Prep School.

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Yesterday I wrote that although Mitt Romney’s teenage “pranks” are, by current standards, fair game for journalists, “pretending that this makes him an anti-gay bully today isn’t. He’s got decades of adult experiences that tell us what kind of man he’s become.”

I still believe that, but the more I think about exactly that point — focusing on Romney’s actions right now, not his actions 50 years ago — the more disturbing the whole Lauber affair becomes. Lots of teenage boys bully classmates, and in the mid-60s it was equally common to bully kids for seeming effeminate. That doesn’t tell us much about Romney the man.

But Romney the man has denied, and repeatedly denied yesterday, even remembering this incident. Sure, it was half a century ago, but he led a posse of his friends, tackled John Lauber in a hallway, dragged him into a bathroom, and then chopped off his hair while he struggled in terror. Even if you grant that this kind of extreme behavior was more common in a 1960s prep school than it is today, it’s really not the kind of thing you’d forget.

At least, you shouldn’t. So either Romney has done this kind of thing so often that the Lauber incident just blends into all the others, which suggests a far more vicious childhood than he’s owned up to, or else he remembers it just fine and is simply lying about it.

My guess is the latter. And that’s depressing, as much for what it says about modern politics as for what it says about Romney. Because, really, what would be the harm of just talking about this? Fess up, acknowledge that you remember the incident, explain that you feel terrible about it, maybe even draw some gauzy lessons about tolerance for the View set, etc.? But for some reason Romney is too politically insecure to do that. He’s obviously afraid that he’d pay some terrible price. Afraid that it would make him seem weak. That speaks badly for him, and badly for American politics.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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