Mitt Romney Apologizes for Bullying John Lauber at Cranbrook School in 1965

ETCH-A-SKETCH moment:  GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney apologized for a 1965 incident at Cranbrook School, located in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., where he allegedly bullied a male student who was thought to be gay. Um, really people? Obama is laughing at this distraction and is it really important in the grand scheme of things? 1965 vs. 2012?

“I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended … obviously I apologize,” Romney said on Kilmeade & Friends, a radio show. He also told Kilmeade that he wasn’t ”going to be too concerned” about the article. Um, really? Then why bother apologizing?

“I don’t remember that incident and I’ll tell you I certainly don’t believe that I … thought the fellow was homosexual,” Romney said. “That was the furthest thing from my mind back in the 1960s, so that was not the case,” he added.

The Washington Post ran the  story, which quotes five of Romney’s classmates from Cranbook, which is located in a Detroit suburb, as saying he led a group of boys who pinned down John Lauber while Romney himself cut the boy”s “bleached blonde hair that draped over one eye.” John Joseph Lauber, who was expelled from Cranbrook for smoking, died from liver cancer in 2004. I’m sure he would remember what Mitt Romney and his posse did to him. The timing on the Washington Post article is interesting — just one day after President Obama endorsed gay marriage and a few days after Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan also endorsed gay marriage.

UPDATE#1: It seems that there’s yet another student Mitt Romney displayed anti-gay sentiments towards — Gary Hummel, a closeted gay, who he disrupted in English class at Cranbrook, shouting, “Atta girl.” He also behaved in a “sour fashion” towards scholarship recipient Lou Vierling because he was from a poor area of Detroit, the Washington Post reports. Um, elitist behavior? This is going to be one nasty election campaign.

Here’s the reaction on Twitter:

Unlike Romney, I doubt John Lauber, the student bullied & assaulted by Romney & his “posse”, ever forgot the incident. He died in 2004. Sad.

— Lynn (@wavingcrosser) May 10, 2012

BREAKING: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspends Mitt Romney (R-MA) six games for initiating a “bounty” on classmate John Lauber.

— Jake Parrott (@jakehparrott) May 10, 2012

You know who should be in the front row of every presidential debate this fall? John Lauber’s sisters. nymag.com/daily/intel/20…

— Russell Schaffer (@RussOnPolitics) May 10, 2012

@MittRomney Do you not remember assaulting John Lauber because you often pinned boys down with a gang of your friends and cut their hair?

— Aunty Entity (@vudugrrrrl) May 10, 2012

Mitt Romney now says he has “no memory” of violently bullying his gay classmate, John Lauber. Something tells me Lauber wouldn’t forget it.

— Patrick Strudwick (@PatrickStrud) May 10, 2012

Mitt Romney accepted the school’s 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award. A year earlier, John Joseph Lauber died at a Seattle hospital.

— Brad Woodhouse (@woodhouseb) May 10, 2012

John Lauber. Get used to that name. He’s Mitt Romney’s new Seamus. Instead of tying him to the roof, he cut his hair. washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-…

— Russell Schaffer (@RussOnPolitics) May 10, 2012