That leaves us with two possibilities:
There is something seriously wrong with his memory, making him literally unable to remember a highly-charged incident of his young adulthood, or
There is something seriously wrong with his character, such that he did this sort of thing all the time and no one particular incident is memorable (the Bricker hypothesis).
You do realize that forgetting you organized a posse in high school to assault and humiliate a classmate is possibly even worse than doing such a terrible thing in the first place. It says horrible things about his empathy for fellow human beings.
Like being a Republican isn’t sufficient to establish that?
He’s so far over the line, he can’t even fake it successfully.
Because it happened and if he denied it, someone would come forward and that would do more damage then, “I dont recall the event”.
In either case, this falderal is just a diversion from the real issues, which is business as usual in an election year.
[Modding]
Moving this to Elections from Great Debates.
[/Moderating]
I mentioned this in another thread, but Romney’s comments were designed to get the story in the rear view mirror as quickly as possible. He apologized, which was the right thing to do even though many people would find his apology unsatisfying and self-servingly vague. He didn’t deny the events because it would have started a public argument that would have kept the story in the news even longer. (And the evidence suggests they did happen.) He said he didn’t remember the incident because if he’d said he remembered it, he would’ve had to take more questions about it, and that also would have kept the story in the news.
I can see “not remembering” holding someone down and cutting their hair; If I had done many things far worse.
Since Watergate, at least, anyone asked an embarrassing question about an event in the past has learned to say “I don’t remember.” Impossible to disprove.
I’m a lot more disturbed about him calling it a prank.
If you had planned to ambush someone I bet you’d recall it a lot more. Especially if you had accomplices.
No, it is NOT a diversion from the real issues. Romney’s economic policies are such that they would hurt a lot of people. Maybe some pain needs to be doled out to rectify some perceived problem in the economy, national debt, deficit whatever. The President needs to understand the consequences of his actions for real people, not just his friends who own NASCAR teams and NFL franchises. This whole incident shows that he does not have empathy for real human beings and that this has been true for a very long time.
It speaks DIRECTLY to real issues in this campaign. It is not so much distraction of “he was mean to a kid in high school.” He organized a gang to assault a kid and then clearly doesn’t think it was a big deal. So, when he throws seniors out in the street to die by cutting of Social Security, Medicare, or whatever, what makes me think he will care now? Not a damn thing.
“I don’t care about poor people”, “I like firing people,” tying the dog to the roof of the car, and assaulting a kid in high school just for being different paints a picture of the man. It’s an ugly picture.
[ul][li] Clinton suffers from asthma (or severe allergies mimicking asthma).[/li][li] Deep inhaling may be contraindicated with asthma or allergy-caused bronchitis.[/li][li] College students often smoked socially just to fit in.[/li][/ul]
So yes, that Clinton didn’t inhale is quite plausible, though hardly certain.
To be fair, he didn’t tie the dog to the roof of the car; he tied a crate with the dog in it to the roof. Which is still bad, of course, but not as bad.
“He referred to a book written by a British journalist as his evidence. But he hinted that there was more to the story. “I thought it was funny that I didn’t inhale. I didn’t say that I didn’t try,” he said. “It was something I could not do, that didn’t have anything to do with the way it was spun out to you. It was a joke.””
Link
To answer the OP, I think because one is the truth and one isn’t.
Romney said he didn’t remember while also acknowledging that he did pull pranks. I took that to mean it was plausible that it happened but that he didn’t remember.
It really was thirty years ago. That’s far too long to depend on memories for specific events. He really might not remember. He remembers an atmosphere where he did things *like *that.
Or worse yet. He’s worried that a flat-out denial will encourage journalists to investigate and they’ll find out this wasn’t a unique incident.
Think about it. Anyone know a high school bully who only got in one fight?
Really? What have you been inhaling? 2012-1965. Do the math.
Yeah, that’s what I meant.
You know, more than 30 years. By like 17.
Seriously, it’s too long to expect somebody to remember accurately. He’s probably not as insensitive now.
Do you have evidence of this claim?
The Post story described several incidents like this, although most people would agree the haircut one was the worst.
If so, he should probably remember it. I don’t believe his denial, but it doesn’t make much difference at this point.
At least he didn’t say that “bangs were cut” back then.