Once again Mr. Romney has failed to demonstrate that he is a human being in this latest media 'crises' that is unfolding. In case you missed it, back in '65 then high school student Mitt Romney got a few boys together to cut the hair of another boy who was sporting a look Mr. Romney found disagreeable. The boy who got his hair cut was new to the school, he dropped out not long after and died a few years ago here in Seattle.
I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing the crass behavior of a 17 year old. Boys will be boys and, as Ray Davies crooned, "he married Betty Lou back in 65 / when you had to be butch to survive", being effeminate made you a target of all sorts of ridicule and violence in those days.
Its not the past but the present that Mr Romney's actions ought to be examined. Those of us who came of age during Watergate know it isn't the crime, its the cover-up that gets you and Mr. Romney's "I can't recall" leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of those of us who watched Mr. Ehrlichman say the same thing some 150 times during the hearings. While it seems hard to believe that Mr. Romney wouldn't remember the incident at all it is even worse if he actually did manage to erase it from his mind. What does it say about his character that he could so thoroughly forgot such a sordid action on his part? Mr. Romney had a great opportunity to demonstrate to us his humanity; imagine if he had hung his head and said how ashamed he was for his actions, how sorry he was that he had never attempted to make amends, and that he carries the guilt of that event around forever and uses it to make him strive to be more tolerant of others. The real Romney was what we saw; the blank look and the bland apology, "I don't remember but I am sorry for any hurt that was caused" accepts no responsibility and offers little solace.
Mr. Nixon had a number of fine qualities; he worked hard and he was smart. What everybody felt he lacked was a moral center, a sense that certain things were right or wrong on the merits of the thing, not how they affected Nixon. Mr. Romney, who also works hard and is smart, does not come off as a paranoid or that he feels persecuted but he behaves as if he is slumming when he deals with other, less well-connected, people. Mr. Nixon resented the owners of the country club, Mr. Romney owns the country club, yet both of them demonstrate in their different ways that the ethos that guide others do not pertain to them.
