Romney has been defending reckless robber barons even as he promises to toss the needy off the dole and rip asunder the matrimonial bonds of his neighbors in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This is no surprise. Romney is a white-collar psychopath who chuckles mirthlessly as he inflicts harm to those below his wealth and rank; those who fail to conform to his notions of taste and decency; and those who are simply in the way of the wealth, positions, and power due to him and his friends.
It was fascinating, however, to see a glimpse of the teenage version of Romney in a recent Washington Post investigative article — and to discover that, just as we expected, he was an obsequious, smug, cruel-hearted Eddie Haskell, whose perfect manners and respect for authority covered a vicious, gleeful cruelty brought against meek targets incapable of fighting back.
The Post story relates a tale of Romney as ringleader, urging his prep-school playmates to pin down a student who had the gall to have grown his hair longer than the fastidious Mittster could abide. Romney, then 18 years old, sheared the sobbing victim himself.
Members of Romney's posse in this assault have expressed remorse and regret over the incident, but not Romney. He claims to have no recollection, and chalks it up to the merry pranks of his youth.
The boy begat the man; as governor, Romney attempted to eliminate a state program to prevent bullying of LGBT students. Today, he has made no objection to House Republicans stripping protection for homosexual victims from the Violence Against Women Act.
Victims are not Romney's concern. They never have been, and as president they never would be.
