I didn’t inhale the first several times that I smoked pot. (I eventually learned though.) It’s totally plausible.
What the hell did you do then, blow it out the other end?
How about “pranks were played”?
If Romney regularly engaged in that type of behavior, I could totally understand him forgetting about it. It’s just a mundane incident from his past. If it doesn’t stand out, it could easily be forgotten.
I remember watching some show where a bully and his victim were reunited. The victim recounted many incidents where he was bullied, yet the bully could not remember a single one of them. The victim was able to recall many details of each incident (i.e. I was playing a video game at the convenience store and you poured a coke on my head). Maybe the bully really did remember, but I got the impression that he didn’t. That type of behavior was normal to him, so why should he remember each time he did something like that? It probably happened all the time.
For those of us who aren’t like that, those incidents really stand out. There’s no way we’d forget if we did something like that. It would be as if someone accused me of tying a dog to my car and driving on the highway. It’s so out of character for me that there’s no way I would forget it. But if someone asked if I remembered that time I put my dog in the car and drove to 7-11 for a slurpee, I’d probably say I didn’t recall. Even if I couldn’t remember that incident, it seems like something I would do.
It went in my mouth but I didn’t inhale it into my lungs.
Yeah, guess I’m just curious why anyone who isn’t an undercover cop would do that, or why it would take “several times” to figure out you’re supposed to inhale when you smoke.
This is a hijack, however, so I can live with my puzzlement if need be.
That seems more plausible than my theory.
OR, his people don’t want him to admit what he did was wrong. Being wrong about harassing the gays is off-putting to a certain segment of the GOP, one that already doesn’t like Romney and might be sitting this one out.
I don’t know what to tell you other than I didn’t. I smoked it like most people smoke a cigar. I don’t think that it’s that unusual.
Get your cheeks nicely stoned?
The guy you passed it to probably didn’t enjoy the wet, chewed end you handed him.
And if Bill Clinton also meant “I used it like a cigar” by “I didn’t inhale,” the guy he handed the joint to must have been really ticked off.
Marley raised a good point. By saying he doesn’t remember the incident, Romney takes himself off the hook from having to personally answer any questions about the incident.
Can we turn this into “Mitt Romney–early Alzheimer’s?” Do we need another Reaganesque “Can’t Remember Shit” President? Or do we want a president with a fully functioning brain?
I still think it should be turned into a discussion of his record and his policy ideas, but apparently it’s more important to prove he was a dick several decades ago.
I realize that “it was so long ago, who cares” is the talking point du jour, but you may have missed that some folks are more concerned with how he’s handling it right now. Have you noticed that being brought up?
“I can’t remember” is particularly lame. Is he lying for political advantage so he does not have to ask questions? This does not say much about his current character does it? His current character is pertinent when considering what kind of a leader he would be.
Does he genuinely not remember? Then he is an unrepentant bully, who would do the same thing today if given the opportunity. Indeed, some have suggested that his behavior at Bain Capital (destroying firms, cutting salaries, firing people, while staying just this side of the law) was a form of adult bullying.
Experts on bullying have been trying for some time to get people to acknowledge that these behaviors are not “pranks” or “boys will be boys”. These people’s actions deliver long-lasting damage. Romney, with his recent words and actions, has spat in the faces of these experts, and at anyone who was every bullied.
It’s not a talking point. It’s a sensible response to what is basically a trivial issue, and it’s the response I hope most people would have to a discussion of something nasty that a man in his mid-60s did in high school.
I’ve seen that “concern” brought up many times by people who want to keep an old and unimportant issue in the news, so I find it difficult to treat that concern as sincere. If the issue isn’t important, it’s hard for me to get worked up about how he deals with it. And that comes from someone who thinks the haircut thing was sadistic and that Romney is lying about not remembering it.
Good point. Perhaps he doesn’t remember because this was just one of dozens of incidents. :eek:
While I"m sure you don’t consider it to be a talking point, it certainly is being used as such by Romney’s political handlers, and it is being repeated ad nauseum throughout the web by the usual right-wing apologists. Which you are not, of course.
“Forgot” or not, his team should be worried about whether or not more incidents are going to come to light in the future. Getting a group together, holding down a student and assaulting him is frequently not the sort of behavior that is a one-off. Romney has a pattern in his life of not really giving a shit about others, and I would not be surprised to hear of new incidents from his 20’s 30’s etc. More sophisticated bullying to be sure, but bullying (or “pranking”) nonetheless.