# Romney: If I Offended Anyone by Torturing Him, I Apologize" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 10, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553 "2012-05-10T21:48:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/81 "2012-05-11T13:15:12Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I didn’t and wouldn’t call him those things. Like I said, the incident was creepy and cruel, and he’s done plenty of things that leave the impression he’s a dick. But that being said, I’m concerned about the amount of energy that’s being expended on this kind of stuff. It’s not that I think those things are off-limits as topics of inquiry; it’s that I think they’re of very little relevance compared to his platform and his record. There’s always stupid stuff in an election and it’s still almost six months until people actually vote, but at the moment, his comments on women’s issues and his economic proposals and his views on the auto bailout are getting less attention than something he did 45 years ago to a guy who died almost a decade ago. This will be a complete non-issue in the campaign when it really starts-- after labor day. The only people who might possibly be talking about this are people who would never vote for him anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/82 "2012-05-11T13:26:33Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > An entitled 18-year old preppie kid picked on an outsider back in 1965. > > This is not: > (a) cool > (b) shocking > (c) relevant to his conduct today > (d) all of the above > > I’m not an Romney fan by ANY stretch of the imagination, but jesus fuck, can we stick with the issues that will have a bearing on the guy’s role as president? I’ve just jumped in here. I can vividly remember bullying a child when I was a prefect at boarding school. It lives with me to this very day. I’m ashamed right to this moment. Fortunately there were no other incidents and if anything, its made me a far better person. But I have no excuses. Maybe the same is true of Romney except if he had a compassionate character, the event described would be burned in his memory. Happily I’m outside the USA and don’t have a vote to cast. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/83 "2012-05-11T13:50:55Z")
Not remembering the incident is the most worrisome part. It could be a sign of early dementia. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/84 "2012-05-11T13:59:45Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > Not remembering the incident is the most worrisome part. It could be a sign of early dementia. I doubt he has dementia. More likely he’s lying his ass off. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/85 "2012-05-11T13:59:51Z")
I’d expect a politician running for national office to be able to handle something like this more smoothly than Romney has. “Uh, uh, I don’t remember, uh, if anyone was hurt then I’m sorry about that, uhh…” Come on. That just sounds weak. But I agree that this won’t have a major impact on the elections, except perhaps insofar as it cements his image in some people’s minds as a rich prep-school bully who has no idea what it’s like to live as a normal human being in this society. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/86 "2012-05-11T14:10:39Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > What matters is how the candidate addresses these things, or if they’re self-created to begin with. No one made up the silly stuff about the dog, corporations, firing people, trees, $10,000 bet, or (presumably) the bullying incident. And today’s response to the bullying incident contributes much more to the picture than does the 50-year-old incident itself. The really strange thing is all that of these are so close to being normal. – “I’ll bet you dinner” instead of “I’ll bet you $10,000” – Say you had a dog and he was a bit messy instead of “I strapped him to the roof of the car and he shit himself from fright” – Say “Americans should be able to choose what companies they deal with” instead of “I like to fire people” – And for this bullying incident, he should have apologized like an adult. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/87 "2012-05-11T14:45:52Z")
Oh, bullying behaviour is associated with problems for [the perpetrator](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2003.tb03599.x/abstract) as well as for the victim, though I’m sure most of the people here were aware of that. Such problems are highly unlikely to be caused by the guilt of participating in bullying, the bullying behaviour probably arises as a result of such problems. I doubt the Republican party would appreciate defences of such behaviour, else they’ll be branded as the party of bullies and sycophants, not rugged individualists. Oh, I have to say i laughed at the “Chainsaw Mitt” caricature MOIDALIZE. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/88 "2012-05-11T15:54:06Z")
Several of you have brought up something I also had been ruminating on. I have done some wicked things, and a few mean things. I remember the mean things, my conscience takes them out and polishes them, keeps them bright and clear in my memory. I’ll simply be sitting, doing something, or doing nothing much at all, and _wham!_ a regret spasm, a shame flashback. How could I possibly have done such a rotten thing? And I’m talking about stuff decades gone, done to people who, for all I know, have been taking the dirt nap for years. Things I have apologized for, atoned for, made right as best I could. Makes no difference. I’d like to hit the switch on those synapses, flick them to the “off” position. I could comfort myself by saying it makes me a better person, but I don’t really believe that, its what I do today that is who I am, not what I did then. So, if Mittens it telling the truth about not remembering, there is something deeply different about him and I. Something foundational, something beyond differences of political persuasion and/or religious conviction. Maybe its nothing important, maybe only a tiny minority of us are afflicted with such a pointless and self-destructive regret. My reaction is largely instinctual, perhaps, but I don’t like it. Not one little bit. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/89 "2012-05-11T16:02:45Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I’d expect a politician running for national office to be able to handle something like this more smoothly than Romney has. “Uh, uh, I don’t remember, uh, if anyone was hurt then I’m sorry about that, uhh…” It probably gets him what he wants here: he gets credit for more or less apologizing, he doesn’t have to get into an argument about whether or not happened (which seems to be the direction his communications staff was originally going in), and he doesn’t have to take any more questions about it- which he would if he said he remembered it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/90 "2012-05-11T16:36:09Z")
I say we give Romney some credit. Bush was sending people off to foreign countries to be tortured. Romney is willing to torture people himself right here in America. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/91 "2012-05-11T16:56:44Z")
To me it just highlights the thought that Mitt is about as far away from an empathetic person you could make a Presidential candidate. He hasn’t a clue about what even simple everyday struggles most people have in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/92 "2012-05-11T17:15:22Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Careful… there’s poison in this well. You need a better chemistry set. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/93 "2012-05-11T17:16:41Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > To me it just highlights the thought that Mitt is about as far away from an empathetic person you could make a Presidential candidate. He hasn’t a clue about what even simple everyday struggles most people have in their lives. I wonder if he would recognize such thing as a UPC checkout-scanner? (Bush I didn’t.) ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/94 "2012-05-11T17:43:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I wonder if he would recognize such thing as a UPC checkout-scanner? (Bush I didn’t.) We’ve gone over this before, but that was a jokey dig from a jokey article. Of course Bush I knew what a checkout scanner is. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/95 "2012-05-11T17:51:19Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > The word “if” has no place in any genuine apology. None whatsoever. Its appearance signifies a complete lack of remorse. It’s [much worse](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us/politics/years-later-a-prep-school-bullying-case-snares-romney.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper) than that: [QUOTE=The New York Times, May 11, 2012] “As to pranks that were played back then, I don’t remember them at all, but again, high school days, if I did stupid things, why, I’m afraid I’ve got to say sorry for it,” Mr. Romney, 65, the presumptive Republican nominee, said in a Fox News Radio interview on Thursday. [/QUOTE] In this sound bite I found, the ‘I don’t recall’ excuse, the ‘it was high school’ excuse, the non-apology apology (“if”), and, last, but certainly not least, the blanket non-apology apology. What a politican. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/96 "2012-05-11T17:59:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, you guys don’t understand because you don’t know what it’s like in boarding school. If mummy had sent you to Andover, maybe you’d have some sympathy for the guy!! Mummy sent me to a non-boarding prep school for a few years. (Getting back to public school for my last couple of years in high school was like going from purgatory to heaven.) My big takeaway from that time: thugs wearing coats and ties are still thugs. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/97 "2012-05-11T18:01:16Z")
Anyone wonder if the timing of Obama’s newfound support for SSM was synched up with the release of the Romney “Gay Bashing” (or whatever you want to call it) story for maximum impact? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/98 "2012-05-11T18:04:32Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Anyone wonder if the timing of Obama’s newfound support for SSM was synched up with the release of the Romney “Gay Bashing” (or whatever you want to call it) story for maximum impact? No. That’s way too much of a reach for me. “Pranks that were played…”. That’s even worse than “mistakes were made”. Pranks that were played…??? I thought we had outlawed torture, but maybe it’s still OK to torture the English language. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/99 "2012-05-11T18:08:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No. That’s way too much of a reach for me. Well, for myself personally, while I think there are a million reasons to loathe Romney without trolling around his teen years looking for dirt, as a Democrat, I would find it reassuring (in an ugly way) that my side has finally learned to take a page from the likes of Darth Rove and his vile ilk. If it’s good for the goose(steppers)… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553/100 "2012-05-11T18:13:02Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Anyone wonder if the timing of Obama’s newfound support for SSM was synched up with the release of the Romney “Gay Bashing” (or whatever you want to call it) story for maximum impact? No, particularly since it has already been reported that Obama was going to announce this later in the summer. There are just too many moving parts: Biden speaking up during the interview, the time it took for the Post to research and write the piece, and on and on and on. The Post was actually going to run the piece a day earlier and had to delay it so they could cover Obama’s announcement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-if-i-offended-anyone-by-torturing-him-i-apologize/621553.md?page=6)