Prep School Prankster, Bully, Hate Criminal?

A popular senior at an elite prep school becomes publicly incensed at the appearance of an effeminate fellow student and gathers up a posse of fellow students, who assault, tackle and pin the student as he screams for help while the senior hacks off his hair. The senior, who was the son of the current governor of the State, was never punished. His victim was later expelled for smoking a cigarette.

By the standards being applied today in New Jersey, the perpetrators committed a hate crime, one in some ways more heinous than that which led to the NJ student's suicide. Although five witnesses and perpetrators clearly recalled the deed forty some years later, the ring leader denies remembering it, but still apologized for "youthful hijinks."

That was a long time ago, so should the bully be held responsible for those long ago acts, even if they inflicted a lifetime's worth of damage on the victim? I don't know, but as Andrew Sullivan has said, it fits well with the general lack of compassion shown by "I like to fire people" Romney in other contexts. Maybe the skunk doesn't change his stripes.

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