This morning, as I was out walking my dog, a thought came to me. I have been giving the Mitt Romney incident at Cranbrook School a fair amount of thought over the past few days, and I realized that there's an angle we haven't heard--and won't ever hear--from the major media outlets in this country. Follow me down and I'll tell you what it is.
We all know the Harry Potter story by now. The books and movie adaptations have been a cultural phenomenon the likes of which we may not see again in our lifetimes. We all know what a muggle is, and what Diagon Alley is, and what's the deal about He-who-must-not-be-named. But the characters in J.K. Rowling's books also seem to be taken right out of the halls of Cranbrook School in 1965.
The villain in this incident, as at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is one who has the privileges that come from wealthy and influential parents who will protect their son, and thus enable him to do as he pleases. The son, secure in this knowledge, proceeds to inflict pain and humiliation upon others, simply because he can. Rowling called him Draco Malfoy, but at Cranbrook he was known as Mitt Romney.
But Malfoy didn't act alone. He had accomplices, or henchmen, if you prefer that term. They went along with the cruelty, in part because they were cruel themselves, and in part because it made them feel as if the privileged one thought more highly of them than he ever really could. Rowling named these accomplices Crabbe and Goyle, but at Cranbrook School they were five men, four of whom spoke on the record about the incident, and one who did not want his name to be used.
The target of Malfoy/Romney's abuse had to be someone awkward and weak, who wouldn't be able to fight back or defend himself. Rowling gave this poor, pathetic character the Dickensian name of Neville Longbottom, but at Cranbrook his name was John Lauber. Mr. Lauber is unable to tell his side of the story, having died in 2004, but the vagabond's life that he appeared to lead after being expelled from Cranbrook suggests life wasn't as good for him as we might hope.
And finally, there's everybody else in the school, who knows that there is abusive behavior going on. These students might wish that it wasn't going on, but they don't speak out because they know it won't make a difference. Or perhaps they don't want the bully's attention to be transferred to them, instead. They hope that the bullying stops some day, and the bully somehow gets what's coming to him. These students were named Harry and Ron and Hermione in Rowling's story, but they referred to a number of Cranbrook students, such as Philip Maxwell.
We don't read Rowling's books and identify with Draco Malfoy or with Crabbe and Goyle. Instead, we identify with Harry and Ron and Hermione on one hand, or with Neville Longbottom if we've ever had to experience this level of humiliation ourselves. So when we see Mitt Romney--who had gotten away with what he did for over four decades--claim that he doesn't remember any of this, let's think about Draco Malfoy, instead.
Our modern day Malfoy isn't the governor's son anymore, and doesn't have the same kind of immunity that he had at Cranbrook back in the 1960s. Now he's coming to all of us, the Potters and the Weasleys and the Longbottoms of this nation, and asking us to give him the most powerful job there is. But has Malfoy learned anything about compassion, or is he still the privileged boy that he once was? And it's pretty clear to me what the answer is.