THE BIG BULLY
THE AMERICAN PROSPECT: It was one (fabulous, uplifting, inspiring) thing to watch the president of the United States come out for same-sex marriage on Wednesday. It was whole ‘nother to see, within 24 hours of Barack Obama’s revelation, his campaign immediately begin to use Mitt Romney’s opposition to marriage equality against him in an online video. You might have expected the Obama folks to step back after the president’s announcement and say, “We’ve settled that, now let’s get back to talking about jobs and bin Laden.” They’ve done the opposite. “Mitt Romney: Backwards on Equality” is not the most stylish spot you’ll ever behold. But it effectively points out how far right Romney is on the issue, noting that he also opposes far less controversial civil unions—which even George W. Bush supported. The video also flashes a series of uncontroversial protections for gay couples that Romney would disallow. It all plays into a larger context for the campaign, which is working to paint Romney as a hardline reactionary—a cold, flinty right-winger who’s the polar opposite of the “Forward”-looking president.
Romney seems weirdly hell-bent on helping Obama define him just so. Today, after The Washington Post’s front-page story about Romney’s prep-school bullying of two gay classmates, the presumptive nominee went on Fox News Radio to respond. Here was a chance to turn the ugly story around—an opportunity for the candidate to apologize with heartfelt sincerity, and to speak out passionately against anti-gay bullying. He could have tried to make the case that while he’s anti-marriage equality, he’s not anti-gay. He could have gotten real and expressed true remorse. He did none of those obvious things. Instead, he non-apologized: “I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended by it I obviously apologize, but overall, high-school years were a long time ago.” He claimed no memory of the harassment others remember vividly and shrugged it all off as “hijinks and pranks” that sometimes went too far.
Yep: Just the ticket when you’re running against an opponent who’s portraying you as backward, extreme—as, in many ways, a grown-up political bully out to make life miserable for Americans who aren’t posh enough for prep school.
