Ken Berwitz

Paul Begala, long-time Democrat hatchet man (and a very effective one at that) has written a column for dailybeast.com in which, after quickly getting past the requisite "if it's true" line, he tells us what a sack of excrement Mitt Romney is, based on the allegations that he cut another student's hair against his will (which has major credibility problems) and that he intentionally walked a nearly blind teacher, whom Begala claims was derisively called "the bat", into a closed door (did you hear that one until now?  I didn't.**)

Begala starts his attack this way:

Paul Begala on Romney: Once a Bully, Always a Bully

May 11, 2012 12:33 PM EDT

Romney would be able to dismiss the bullying story as ancient history if it didn’t confirm what we already suspected about him—that he’s a serial abuser of power.

Then, having put up the caveat about the hair-cutting incident he gives us this.

It is a good general principle that we ought not hold teenage wrongdoing against middle-aged people. Mitt Romney has run a business, run the Olympics, run a state, run for the Senate, and run for president. Surely we can and should judge him on his performance of those public duties.

But what if childhood conduct helps shed a light on adult behavior? Romney's teenage bullying hurts him because it is consonant with his adult record. Voters may well conclude: once a bully, always a bully; once a privileged abuser of power, always a privileged abuser of power.

Finally we have Begala's commentary about the visually impaired teacher, whom he has no problem identifying by the derisive name he is attacking Mr. Romney for:

Romney and a pal walked The Bat up to a door. Romney beckoned The Bat to walk through first, making a sweeping motion toward the door as if it were open, but it wasn't. The Bat walked into the closed door as Mitt collapsed in fits of sadistic laughter.

As I said, when it comes to doing a political hatchet job, Begala is as good as it gets.

But I have a question for Mr. Begala.  It is based on the following two childhood events:

-In his book, Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama has told us what he spent his time doing throughout his last two high school years:

"I spent the last two years of high school in a daze, locking away the questions that life seemed insistent on imposing. I kept playing basketball, attended classed sparingly, drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically.

-And, bully wise, he told us that, presumably in grade school, he gained the acceptance of his White classmates, who were teasing him about his "girl friend", Coretta - the only other Black student there, by shoving her and accepting their laughing approval as, humiliated, she ran away:

“I’m not her boyfriend!” I shouted. I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked up at me, but still said nothing. “Leave me alone!” I shouted again. And suddenly Coretta was running, faster and faster, until she disappeared from sight. Appreciative laughs rose around me. Then the bell rang, and the teachers appeared to round us back to class.

My question is:  What if childhood conduct helps shed a light on adult behavior - i.e. Obama's non-existence as a student, his beer drinking and enthusiastic drug use, and his racist attack on the only Black girl in the school (it must have been racist, since he is half White, and did it to please White students)?  Voters may well conclude:  once a disengaged drunk, drug user, abuser of girls and racist, always a disengaged drunk, druge user, abuser of girls and racist.

I'll await a response. But I don't hold out much hope of getting one.

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** I just realized that the story of the teacher with impaired vision - whose name was Carl C. Wonnberger by the way - is further into the Washington Post story than I had gotten (the ridiculousness of this much effort to nail Romney on what he did as a teenage student had already turned me off).  But, in the interests of disclosure, here is the article's verbatim description of what happened:

As an underclassman, Romney accompanied Wonnberger and Pierce Getsinger, another student, from the second floor of the main academic building to the library to retrieve a book the two boys needed. According to Getsinger, Romney opened a first set of doors for Wonnberger, but then at the next set, with other students around, he swept his hand forward, bidding the teacher into a closed door. Wonnberger walked right into it and Getsinger said Romney giggled hysterically as the teacher shrugged it off as another of life's indignities.

Begala tells us "Mitt collapsed in fits of hysterical laughter".  As you can plainly see, Begala is lying.  And, of course, he neglects to mention that the prank was so inconsequential to Mr. Wonnberger that, according to the article, he just "shrugged it off".