Bully Romney?

A story surfaced recently that Romney bullied someone in high school and possibly chose one person because he was gay. I don't think whether Romney bullied means anything about whether he would be a good president. But how he has responded does say something about how he will be as president.

The reason I don't think it matters whether he bullied is because lots of kids bully. I was pretty mean at times. Kids don't really get how much they hurt other people and so without proper supervision and instruction, kids will be mean and kids will bully. It doesn't necessarily mean that a kid that bullies will be a mean person as an adult. 

But it does matter how Romney handles it - and he didn't handle it well. He was a little bit contrite and apologetic, which is nice, but at the same time a bit dismissive. He says he was involved in "pranks and hijinks". That shows that Romney doesn't really take it seriously and hasn't learned anything.

What he should have learned is that kids bully but they shouldn't and we should try to prevent it. Good work is being done here in NYC (see Respect for All) thanks to leadership from the NY City Council. We do it by educating teachers and students about what is acceptable and how it affects people.

A Romney that takes it seriously and that learned from his youth would say that he is deeply sorry for any hurt he caused and he wishes he could go back in time and talk to that young Romney. And as importantly, he would say that he is committed to having or promoting programs that deal with this issue to prevent bullying in schools. He did apologize but he definitely didn't talk about this issue more broadly.

No one should be bullied and we should work and aspire to preventing it. Romney is not up to the challenge and I wonder if he even thinks it is a problem.