The Forming Of A Narrative – From “Weird” to MEAN!
It started late last week when a homosexual adviser to Romney resigned – perhaps in a set-up. Obama turned up the volume on the gay agenda when he endorsed same sex marriage yesterday. The narrative came to fruition this morning with the “in-depth expose’” concerning Romney’s high school years in the Washington Post. The WaPo story tell a couple of interesting tales. The lede:
Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
and a few pages later:
But Friedemann and several people closest to Romney in those formative years say there was a sharp edge to him. In an English class, Gary Hummel, who was a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated with Romney shouting, “Atta girl!” In the culture of that time and place, that was not entirely out of the norm. Hummel recalled some teachers using similar language.
And there you have it – Romney painted as bully, and specifically a bully that aims himself at homosexuals.
“Anti-bullying” campaigns have been springing up all over the nation in the last few years, and I have wondered if they weren’t just a new cover for the homosexual agenda. This seems to make it transparently so. Make no mistake, behind the development of this “Romney as bully” narrative is anti-Mormon fervor – a grudge that has been nursed and coddled and matured to incredibly vile levels within the LGBT community since the passage, with significant help from the Mormon community, of Prop 8 in California.
I personally think it is a huge mistake for Obama to dance this dance with this constituency - the man has plenty of skeletons in his youthful closet; one’s that involve actually illegalities and self-admission. Reports of the Romney events are however, hearsay at best. (“While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank,….) Daniel Foster said at the Corner:
It reminded me that I spent my youth first getting incessantly picked on — mostly fatso stuff, but also some nerd stuff and poor kid stuff — and then, as soon as I got physically strong and clever enough, returning the favor with gusto. (I recall middle school in rural Florida mostly as a series of fistfights of mixed result.) It wasn’t until sometime later in high school that the question of how to be a Man, much less a Good Man, even occurred to me, and I’m still trying to sort out the answer.
The point is that kids — especially teenage boys — are %#&!s. If we’re to be judged by the people we were at 14, then I’m doomed. I don’t suspect I’m alone, either.
My point would be that is Obama is to be forgiven his rather extensive drug use, then what is the big deal here.
But let’s examine this for what it really is. For Team Obama this is a much needed distraction. For the LGBT community this is an opportunity to paint religion, and especially the Mormon faith, not just as wrong, but evil.
Obama cannot talk about the economy, national security or foreign policy. In those places he is a known loser – there is his entire administration to date to prove it. Social issues are all he has, and he knows they are Romney’s weak point.
Obama welcomes any opportunity to talk about anything other than his record. The more he can make this election about anything besides those big three, the economy, national security, and foreign policy, the better off he will be. That’s just politics, but what is truly said is that he is willing to sacrifice religion to that effect. Such reminds me the the separation of church and state was devised more to save religion from the state than vice versa. Obama seems more than willing to throw church under the bus; not for his agenda (given how fast and complete his turn has been on this issue how can he be represented as having an agenda at all?) but for his mere reelection.
Because I do not tread such places readily, I do not know what the left-wing blogosphere is saying, but I am fairly certain that they are saying Romney was prone to such things because of the teachings of his faith, and if they are not, they will soon enough. It has long been a meme of the left that religion, being so “intractable” inevitably leads to conflict. And yet, in the wake of the passage of Prop 8, it was the LGBT incarnation of the left that took to violence in the form of vandalism committed on Mormon houses of worship, the ruination of businesses via boycott, and threats upon the life and safety of leaders of the pro-Prop 8 forces.
It appears these stories concerning Romney’s youth are true, if suspiciously and conveniently timed, but they are due to the misjudgement of youth, not the workings of his faith. We all made mistakes in our youth, some worse than others, but we share this in common. Religion does not cause such mistakes, but rather helps us overcome them. Hence the pro-Prop 8 forces used civil argument and the ballot box to win the day and those in opposition took to the streets.
Religion is a force for good in our society.
Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Electability, News Media Bias, Political Strategy, Proposition 8, Religious Bigotry | 5 Comments » | 
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Rockgod28 on 11 May 2012 at 3:47 am #
Team Obama is getting more sad and desperate by the day.
My grandmother is a die-hard Democrat. I asked her about Obama’s latest statement about gay marriage.
She said he was doing it for votes like all politicians and that I should not pick on him. I reminded her that I did not ask that, just what she thought. She said he was doing it for votes.
Then she said something that surprised me and showed me how culturally and politically people are uninformed.
My grandmother said that there were a lot of states that allowed gay marriage.
I told here there was no state that allows gay marriage or more specifically laws that allow gay marriage.
I reminded her there are a very few states that allow this kind of marriage license like Maryland or Washington.
There are no states for votes to appeal to. Maybe Maryland might pass a law this year, maybe not and Washington to have a referendum this year. It has not happened yet or the results for 2012 decided.
The majority of states have protected marriage and that number continues to grow.
The bottom line is that Team Obama has picked a loser issue and are so desperate to define Romney are now having to pull 45+ year old stories from high school that might not even happened.
Team Obama does not seem to understand that the ‘false, but accurate’ Dan Rather like story tried on George W. Bush failed and not just failed, but backfired.
One thing President Obama is good at and that is rallying the conservative base.
What did he think was going to happen by coming out in favor of such an emotional social issue?
Barak Obama is seen as an outright panderer for votes and special interests. He has damaged himself with his base.
How?
Behold the arrogance of President Obama to gay activists and especially those with the big money.
Clear unspoken message: “Donate to my campaign and I can be more “flexible” after I am elected.”
Activists are shocked and dismayed by the President after the surprise of his announcement. They were about to write the checks when they stopped, looked up and said, “Hey wait, if you have felt this way, why haven’t you done anything before now?”
Obama then says “Hey, I’m on your side, see “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is gone. Now here is how much I need.”
The LGBT community starts to write in the number then realize how much he is asking for is a lot. A LOT!
“Wait,” they stop again, “you have everything we want on your desk right now. If you believe what you just said, why haven’t you signed it?”
“Oh, well, it’s a states issue … for now.” the President gives them a long look.
The check is unsigned as the activists and lobbyists realize they are being played. Do they sign and commit to a man that is using them just for money, not actual conviction, or direct their funds to the state fights that are losing ground more each day?
It is moment of horror after the euphoria of the public statement passed that they get nothing when they have to give everything.
The media try to create the narrative and define Romney as a bully.
Well Dan Savage blew up the anti-bully campaign and now the story is discovered to be false. Not just false, but the alleged victim, who has been dead since 2004, according to his sister; would have been upset at using him for a political attack.
Now what?
Push a false story, keep distracting, keep trying to define Romney as Obama flounders further down in the polls uniting Republicans, turning away independents to conservatives and alienating his own base.
Is Obama done and just does not care anymore?
Continuous Freudian slips off the teleprompter such as his “on my behalf” reference to the military and it will only will get worst. The debates have not even started yet.
President Obama is going to lose and is losing the Presidency.
He can’t stop it. There is nothing to stand on. He can’t define his opponent, the media has failed to protect him, and Chicago style politics isn’t how Washington works.
Obama blatantly in public told the gay community that to get any “play” from the executive branch, they have to “pay” now for anything later.
What is there left to do now?
The story is false, gay activists are wondering if they should risk betting on Obama while heavily leaning toward, NO, rallied Republicans behind Romney, independent and Democrat conservatives are alienated and Obama is making it obvious he is pandering for votes.
Team Obama could only wish the vote was today, because as democratic strategist Carville has been screaming, literally screaming, at Democrats an earthquake is coming to the American political landscape.
As I said before all political momentum is on the Republican side, especially Team Romney.
The Democrats have no traction and failed policies. I was looking at the Electoral College map and it looks really good in Romney’s favor as November approaches. (Not just wishful thinking.)
This will be clear at the end of August.
The real question is when the election starts to appear to be slipping from Team Obama’s fingers and the Democrat Party, what will they do?
Go all in with the New Black Panther Party, OWS, and other social justice organizations to by like ACORN to get out the vote? (See voter fraud and voter intimidation.)
Ironies To Begin The Weekend | Article VI Blog | John Schroeder on 11 May 2012 at 5:39 am #
[...] CommentsRockgod28 on The Forming Of A Narrative – From “Weird” to MEAN!The Forming Of A Narrative – From “Weird” to MEAN! | Article VI Blog | John [...]
GottaZoom on 11 May 2012 at 8:11 am #
This will backfire on Obama . .
. . his desperation move contrasts the thinking of his victim theology with the results of a life improved from finding and following Christ . . a life where accepting grace leads one to humble oneself and become a new, more virtuous person who serves others instead of being a desperate despot.
JLF9999 on 11 May 2012 at 10:04 am #
I would be highly embarrassed to admit all the dumb if not mean things I did as a youngster. Most men have done similar knot headed stuff. Our victims of course would look at our behavior in a different light given they were our victims but none-the-less, we did them. I see no reason to expect that Mitt Romney would have done much different as a youth.
All this does two things: First, it makes him more real. Second it makes me appreciate him as a man with a propensity to be a head knocker when he sees the need. Mitt needs only apologize to his victim if in fact he did what the WaPo says he did because as a youth he went too far. But he does not need to engage in some personal blood letting some 50 years hence as some kind of public repentance.
The kid may have had his pride injured but in a way was acting out too. We appreciatate and allow that kind of behavior now but back then it was seen as a nonconformist’s thumb in the eye of the community. It was deliberate act of non-verbally saying “I don’t like you” to all his other classmates. At the time Mitt’s beahvior was considered jock humor. In reality it was hazing and most hazing is really an assault.
The Weekend:The Bullying Meme and Romney’s Liberty University Speech | Article VI Blog | John Schroeder on 13 May 2012 at 4:59 pm #
[...] Schroeder on Ironies To Begin The WeekendRockgod28 on Ironies To Begin The WeekendJLF9999 on The Forming Of A Narrative – From “Weird” to MEAN!JLF9999 on Ironies To Begin The WeekendGottaZoom on The Forming Of A Narrative – From [...]