It seems well-established now that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Willard Mitt Romney engaged in acts of bullying against at least one gay classmate when he was in prep school in the 1960’s. For my part, I am a firm believer that the mistakes of youth should not, in and of themselves, define a person’s opportunities as an adult. In other words, I believe people who do stupid, mean, petty, vindictive things in their youth, or even just earlier in adulthood, deserve the opportunity to change and to demonstrate that change to others. When I hear about something someone did in the past, I am at least as interested in what they have to say about it now as I am in what they did. What they did helped create the person they are today, but it is not the only factor.

One of the many tensions in evaluating presidential candidates is that we don’t want to disqualify them based on the stupidity of their youth. George W. Bush’s blanket denial that “when I was young and irresponsible I was young and irresponsible” seems like a good rule. On the other hand, we want to know who these candidates are who seek to lead us (especially when they spend so much time offering us synthetic versions of themselves). We are looking for some piece of evidence, some sign of what makes them who they are. Many of us prize “character above all” in a president and a lot of those hints about presidential character are located in the stories of youth. If you want to be president, your résumé, accomplishments, and experience are not enough. Your origins matter.

From the sound of it, Willard Mitt Romney’s high school self sounds kind of like the Cobra Kai team from The Karate Kid, picking out the different kid for ridicule and torment (except that this kid probably didn’t have Mr. Miyagi).

A story in the Washington Post based on interviews with several of Romney’s fellow students alleges that young Mitt was a bullying rich kid who had it in for boys who were too different.

One boy, in particular, caught Romney’s attention — a shy, new kid at the school named John Lauber who had bleached blond bangs that dipped across one eye. According to those interviewed, young Mitt was bugged by Lauber’s hair. “He can’t look like that,” Romney reportedly told one of his friends. “That’s wrong. Just look at him!”

Romney pulled together a pack of boys and went to Lauber’s room, where they tackled him and pinned him down. As Lauber, with tears streaming down his cheeks, screamed for help, Romney pulled out scissors and chopped away at the kid’s hair.

That was the worst, but not the only of Romney’s bullying high school pranks, according to the Post. At least one person suggested young Romney had it in for boys he suspected of being gay.

The event seems to have left quite an impression on the other boys who took part in the attack on Lauber, as indicated by their statements to the Washington Post reporters.

It is hard to forget that scene after reading it; how easy could it be after living it? For the five former students who spoke to the Post’s Jason Horowitz —four of them allowed their names to be used—it seems to have been impossible, becoming the sort of indelible, awful wrong that haunts both sides. “It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” Thomas Buford said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.” “It was vicious,” said Philip Maxwell. “He was just easy pickins,” said Matthew Friedemann. He told the Post that he wondered if they’d get in trouble. They didn’t; nor did Romney when another student thought to be gay spoke in class and he called out, “Atta Girl!” Lauber, however, was kicked out of Cranbrook, a private all-boys boarding and day school, when someone saw him smoking a cigarette, alone.

I did some pretty stupid stuff in my youth. I also did some pretty stupid stuff yesterday, but the stuff from my youth was probably worse. I’ve tried to make amends to people I hurt, in person when possible, or by paying it forward otherwise. I never forcibly sheared anyone’s hair, but I know I hurt a lot of feelings. I’d like to think that I have owned up to the foolishness of my youth, and that it has made me a better person. It says quite a bit about Mitt Romney’s fellow bullies that they can look back and see how wrong their actions were. The article doesn’t necessarily show what kind of people they are today, but clearly they have grown since their teenage days almost fifty years ago. Romney? Eh, maybe not so much.

The one person who says he has not thought about it a lot is Mitt Romney. His campaign told the Post, “The stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents.” Thursday morning, as it became clear that this was no kind of answer—that Horowitz and Julie Tate, who contributed to the reporting, had this story down, with witnesses who are members of both political parties and have grown into a range of professions—Romney, on Fox News Radio, offered a blanket apology for anything that might have slipped his mind:

Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously, I apologize for that… You know, I don’t, I don’t remember that particular incident [laughs]… I participated in a lot of high jinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.

Does he count this as a high jink or a prank? It was neither; it is hard to imagine that hurt, rather than being the byproduct, was anything other than the point of the attack on Lauber. In terms of what a gay teen-ager might encounter, and what other boys might go along with at a school like Cranbrook, 1965 was different; but memory and empathy are not qualities that have only been invented since then. As our country has changed, and the other boys became men, they seem to have turned the events of that day over in their minds, not once, but many times, and made something new out of it. That it why it’s all the worse that Romney says he can’t remember—that he walked blithely away from the boy crying on the ground and kept going. Was there nowhere in him for that sight to lodge?

“High jinks and pranks.” This is much the same mentality that leads people to dismiss the abuse at Abu Ghraib as a series of fraternity pranks. It is not terribly surprising that the sort of person who could write this assault off as a “prank” is the same person who would leave his dog on top of his car for an all-day road trip, then fail to understand why people are upset about it. It’s the mentality of someone who thinks $10,000 is a reasonable amount for an off-hand wager, or someone who thinks it’s any of his business who a person can or cannot marry. It is the mentality of someone who has openly admitted that he shapes his statements and actions around the fact that he is running for office. It is the mentality of an unrepentant bully.