The story about Mitt Romney attacking a classmate and cutting his hair has increasingly disturbed me.
I've never liked Mitt, but have never detested him either. I've viewed him more as a privileged twit than as a privileged bully. Now that's changed. I really think this could change the whole narrative about Mitt as an eminently decent guy in his personal life who has trouble taking consistent positions in his political life. An alternative narrative could take hold: The very reason Romney is so inconsistent on issues is that he's a hollow man who knows that his instincts are toward meanness, so to hide that he must always calibrate and calculate before he speaks.
And it's gotten me to thinking: If a Democratic candidate had somehow emerged from the primaries with no one knowing this aspect of his character -- and did not respond with an immediate apology and explanation as to how he had matured -- the Fox News/Republican machine wold make mincemeat of that candidate. The barber narrative would work its way into nearly every story about him. The drumbeat would be relentless and it would make its way into Republican ads.
Should the Democrats push this relentlessly? Or let it be a two-day story?
I must say, I have never found the "dog on the roof" story to be all that revealing of Romney's character, yet that still is being pushed. This deserves far more attention. What say you?