Jason Horowitz writes about Romney’s high school years at tony Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills. We learn that Willard was once a gay bully.

. . he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

After he organized a posse to tackle the fay, Mitt cut off the damned blondness. Everyone else who participated in the bullying feels bad about it, but the candidate can’t even remember it:

His campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in a statement that “anyone who knows Mitt Romney knows that he doesn’t have a mean-spirited bone in his body. The stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.”

Enough of your tales of cruelty, partisans. Everyone knows he’s not that sort of guy. Hold up, this just in:

Mitt Romney said Thursday that “back in high school I did some dumb things” but insisted that the prep school pranks chronicled in a news story were never intended to target gay students specifically.

“They talked about the fact that I played a lot of pranks in high school, and they described some that, boy, you just say to yourself, ‘Back in high school,’ you know, ‘I did some dumb things.’ If anyone was hurt by that or offended by that, obviously, I apologize. But overall, high school years were a long time ago . .”

So Romney does have “a mean spirited bone in his body.” Oops. The winger scrambling had already gone ant-like and map-wide before Mitt admitted to assaulting the poor kid. One wonders just how everyone will handle the new truth. Gawd knows they were already doing a piss-poor job of bailing the candidate out in the hours before this.

Jim Geraghty at National Review: “New Bright Shiny Object Enters Presidential Campaign Debate”. Somebody needs to give Jim a refresher course in propaganda.

But it is a fascinatingly convenient coincidence for the Obama campaign.

Romney said he does not recall the 1965 incident . . [cut/paste] . .

The bullying victim in the story died in 2004.

Jim barely sat down before Rich Lowry slapped the back of his head. You don’t admit it was bullying, fool. And you certainly don’t remind everyone the victim is dead. Sympathy? Heard of it? Jim’s post, 89 words of his own and 84 of the Washington Post’s, then got an update. This new opinion of Jim’s, skeptical and derisive, was a 371 word footnote to the original:

. . it is fascinating that an alleged assault, with many witnesses, generated no reports to authority or discipline at a school where smoking a cigarette is sufficient to get a student thrown out of school. If the victim’s hair was such a topic of attention and conversation, it is impossible no one noticed his hair had been cut.

However, it is possible that Jim can’t remember how gays were once treated, or how they’re treated in much of the United States today. The NR prides itself on its sentient writers, whoever they may be. Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom, “Praetorian WaPo: Romney not better than Jesus.” If this makes no sense to you, you’re with me. See if this helps:

… OOooooOOOoooo! Troubling! Not just any long-haired non-conformist, but a presumed gay kid! In 1965!!

Now the peroxide student is a long-haired non-conformist. I suppose bleaching your hair near Mitt Romney makes you some sort of asshole, and Darlene’s just stating the obvious.

At least when Jesus tossed the money changers out of the temple, they weren’t presumed homosexuals.

If they’d been cakey, think of how much worse! Good on Mitt for his Biblical style. Pro-fess-or Le-gal-donk: “Your mainstream media at work – Romney teased someone in high school in 1965.” Gootchy goo, fags:

I once participated in a group which gave someone a wedgie when I was at summer camp in the 1960s. That’s why I’ll never run for President, my record is stained.

If you were 18 years old, like Mitt was, and organized a group of your peers to tackle a queer and cut his BVDs off, you’d have a serious problem, Pro-fess-or. Laws and such, dude.

Now about that Obama trip to Pakistan and his 20 years in Jeremiah Wright’s church … bigot, racist, Islamophobe, wingnut.

Pro-fess-or and Mittens are the exact same sort of victimized conservatives, aka ‘American Studs.’ Go prove it, pal — grab some scissors and tackle the first twinkle toes you see. See you in court, de-fen-dant. Ed Morrissey: “Cutting-edge reporting from WaPo: Let’s take an in-depth look at … Romney’s cruel high-school pranks.”

Despite demonstrating zero curiosity over Barack Obama’s college transcripts to check on just how brilliant the academic actually was, the Post now has a big expose on Mitt Romney’s high school career as … a practical joker:

When a young man is left crying and screaming for help, the “prank” counts neither for practical nor joking. But at least Ed has the right idea, lying and then changing the subject. What about grades? What about this?

Here’s something that happened in the last three years:

Jesus Christ! It’s the seasonally adjusted civilian labor force participation rate in four-month increments! What a vicious 2% socialist wilding across three years. If that don’t make you wanna tackle this Barack feller and shave his head, well, then.