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Matthews: Romney could still have the chance to show sincere remorse

Let me finish tonight with high school.Remember it? Remember how you were treated? By your classmates, that is?Were you cool? Did you know the latest dances?

Let me finish tonight with high school.

Remember it? Remember how you were treated? By your classmates, that is?

Were you cool? Did you know the latest dances? Were you popular, part of the "in crowd"? Or did you feel awkward a lot of the time, never really part of "the scene," the social scene? 

Finally, do you remember the people you had lunch with most days? The table you knew you were welcome at, the ones you knew you weren't? Do you remember the bullies? The kids who may have been good at sports, or hung around with them, and were cold, sometimes nasty, to the kids who weren't?

Look, this guy Romney...he says he can't remember if he ever led a pack of classmates and went in search of a classmate--a kid with longish hair, a kid they figured was gay--and got on top of him, got him on the ground and, while he was screaming and crying out, Mitt Romney did the honors: cut his hair off. 

If Mitt Romney never did this, he should say so and proudly. Why would you want people to think you did it?  


If Mitt Romney did do this, it would be helpful to know how he looks back on this: with a giggle, with embarrassment or (let's go for the moral jackpot) that he feels honestly bad about how badly he treated another kid his age, a kid scared to death, worried about who he was, worried sick about what his classmates had decided to do to him without a tad of sympathy. In fact, out of sheer animal delight. 

So probably he'll stick to his "I don't remember," but it might be good for the voter to remember. I'm sure Richard Grenell is thinking about this story of Mitt Romney's student days, thinking hard about the fact that the man who was once this kid was the man who this past week let him get chased away from his campaign and didn't lift a finger or his voice to say, "Richard, you're my guy and I want you to stay in my campaign. I stand up to the predators with you." 

Mitt can still do that. It could be his way of saying, "Ladies and gentleman, my name is Mitt Romney, the same guy who did that bad thing in school, and I ask you to vote for me because I have changed."