(Photo: Courtesy Cranbrook Schools)

Today’s edition of The Washington Post features an article about Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney that tarnishes the gleaming image he’s spent a lifetime creating. It focuses on an incident in which Romney led a band of boarding school boys in an attack on a fellow student that today would get him expelled from his alma mater, the prestigious Cranbrook School, and suggests that the student may have been bullied because he was gay.

New boy John Lauber had bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, The Post reports, and stood out from the other students whose hair was as manicured as the fields surrounding the single-sex school. It’s a look that former classmate Matthew Friedemann recalls appalled Romney, who described it as “wrong.”

Romney and his posse tackled and pinned Lauber to the floor in a room in their dorm and the future Massachusetts governor clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

It was a really cruel thing to do, but, hey, boys will be boys, right? What some may find more troubling is the contrast between Friedemann and other sources quoted in the piece, who years later are still haunted by the shameful memory, and the instigator. Romney said he didn’t remember the incident but later acknowledged doing “some stupid things in high school” and apologized for any harm he may have caused. Some pundits have asked if Romney doesn’t really remember or if he is simply not telling the truth.

Conservatives will slam the article as “gotcha journalism” and argue that Romney shouldn’t be judged by something he did as a kid. Others will cite a seeming lack of empathy for ordinary Americans frequently exhibited on the campaign trail and the way he bullied former presidential opponents with negative advertising and argue that it’s a statement about his character, or lack thereof.

(Photo: Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

By Joyce Jones

Bristol Palin, the presumably first unwed teen mom to grace the stage of a national political convention and Dancing With the Stars reject, has taken exception to the influence Malia and Sasha Obama had on the president’s decision to come out of the closet and publicly support same-sex marriage. President Obama on Wednesday said that his daughters’ acceptance of friends with same-sex parents helped to prompt his “change in perspective.”

In a Thursday blog post titled “Hail to the Chiefs — Malia and Sasha Obama,” the eldest daughter of former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said that President Obama’s decision reflected “what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee”:

“While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads. In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her [sic] friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’ not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that — as great as her friends may be — we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview,” Palin said.

This comes from a young woman who not only didn’t marry Levi Johnston, the father of her child, but also sought full custody and child support from him in 2009. Johnston also made the rounds on several television shows on which he said the Palins wouldn’t allow him to see his son.

Palin is now a born-again virgin who promotes teen pregnancy prevention. If she only had a brain.

(Photo: Olivier Douliery/ABACAUSA.com/Getty Images)

By Joyce Jones

“I never bought into the notion that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a post-racial period,” President Obama recently said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. Neither did I, but I still find it shocking how deeply rooted racism still is in the U.S.

That was definitely the case when I read a New York Times article about how race prevented voters in the working class town of Steubenville, Ohio, who normally support Democratic tickets, from casting ballots for Obama. More shocking still is how willingly they expressed their racism in a national newspaper.

“He was like, ‘Here I am, I’m Black and I’m proud,’ ” Lesia Felsoci told the Times over a beer in Applebee’s. “To me, he didn’t have a platform. Black people voted him in, that’s why he won. It was Black ignorance.”

Another woman likened youthful enthusiasm for Obama’s first White House win to a fad because young voters wanted to help make history.

“It was a fad to like him,” said 22-year-old pizza shop worker Dee Kirkland, who added that “race shouldn’t hinder you, but it also shouldn’t help you.”

Their ignorance is chilling but, as they say, better the devil you know.

(Photos: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images; Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

By Joyce Jones

Now that Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have awakened from their dream of becoming president, each will be expected to exhibit signs of amnesia about how Mitt Romney basically money-bombed them off the campaign trail with negative advertising. But Team Obama has no plans to forget and can be expected to beat that drum from now until November.

“[Romney’s] basically reduced to running a negative campaign,” said senior advisor David Axelrod during a Monday conference call with reporters. “We have a different approach.”

It’s called “Go,” a $25 million ad buy that will air in nine battleground states. It’s filled with positive messages about President Obama’s record, Axelrod explained, but make no mistake, when the hits from the Romney campaign come their way, they’re willing and, more important, ready to hit back.

“We’re also going to be prepared — and I want to be clear — to respond to the attacks that we expect to continue not just from the Romney campaign but the [Karl] Rove and Koch brothers contract killers over there in super PAC land who are going to continue to pound away on behalf of Gov. Romney,” he said.

During the call there was a bit of a technological hiccup, rendering several reporters unable to ask questions. Axelrod joked that the glitch must have come out of the GOP’s bag of dirty tricks.

“These Republicans will stop at nothing,” he said. “They’ve snipped our lines.”

(Photo: Kevork Djansezian/GettyImages)

Could 1 pm ET today be D-Day for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie?

Republicans are waiting with baited breath to learn whether Christie will make their dreams come true Tuesday and enter the Republican presidential nominating race. They’ve been after him for months, even though he’s said no in a variety of ways that have ranged from joking that he would “actually have to commit suicide to convince people I’m not running” to the candidly honest “I’m not ready.”

David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says all of this fantasizing about Christie is just plain weird.

“In 2008, Democrats weren’t constantly crying that they’ve got to get somebody else besides this Obama guy or that Hillary,” Bositis said. “The GOP has lots of candidates but it’s almost like they’re looking for the messiah.”

That, or they need a political Wizard of Oz who can give each candidate the thing Republican voters think is lacking, Bositis and I mused. But for now they seem to feel that Mitt Romney needs a personality, Rick Perry a brain, and Herman Cain, despite all of his heart, a real chance to win the nomination.

Republicans like Christie because he’s a tough-talking conservative who leaves no doubt about where he stands on an issue, sometimes rudely so. They think they know already know what they’d be getting, but the man they’ll meet on the campaign might just turn out to be more like Bizarro Christie, who must govern in a parallel universe in which it’s sometimes necessary for political leaders to be pragmatic and often compromise.

And, although he’s not yet accepted the GOP faithful’s proposal, Democrats have already sought to alienate their affection for him. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick assailed New Jersey’s unemployment rate, which he said is higher than the national average. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley on Face the Nation added to the list, saying that under Christie’s leadership, the state has had its bond rating downgraded, added no net jobs and the cuts he’s made to education funding have resulted in a decline in its national ranking.

Be careful what you wish for, GOPers! The heart wants what it wants — until it gets it.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Jobs, jobs, jobs is the topic that’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference is offering some interesting forums on efforts to address this gnawing problem.

The Congressional Black Caucus will be front and center Wednesday morning when it hosts its For the People Jobs Commission in the Congressional Visitor Center. The group has assembled an impressive series of panels that will feature experts who’ll talk about programs and policies in place that can aid unemployed workers in their job search, helping them to locate where the jobs are. In fact, economic opportunity and jobs will be the theme of the conference’s national town hall meeting Thursday morning.

During President Obama’s run for office in 2008, young adults shook off their antipathy and helped make history. Once the election was over, however, their fervor died. But a Black family in the White House doesn’t mean that race no longer colors politics. Viral emails of watermelon patches on the White House lawn, doctored chimpanzee photos and birtherism are just a few examples of the persistence of racial animosity. But maybe a forum titled Hip Hop Activism in a Politically Polarized America, hosted by Rep. André Carson, will help get people excited again.

(Photo: AP/Reed Saxon, File)

For a while there, Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) was threatening to lead a march in front of the White House during the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual legislative conference this weekend to protest President Obama’s response to the soaring African-American unemployment rate. He’s since backed down, because of the American Jobs Act that the president introduced last week — or so he says.

It’s more likely that somebody convinced Conyers that putting on such a spectacle was a really bad idea. But, according to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, it would be a very different story under a different administration.

“If [former president] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” he said in an interview with McClatchy newspapers.

Imagine the headlines that would fly around the Internet faster than you can press the “return” key if the CBC did lead a public protest: “Black Lawmakers March on Obama!” “Hundreds of African-Americans Protest in Front of the White House!”  “Minorities Think Obama Is Clueless on Jobs and the Economy, Too!”

And the viral videos! Conservative news programs would put them on a constant loop and talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be in heaven.

But the CBC is stuck between a rock and a hard place. At least a few members have, on occasion, whispered into Politi-Chick’s ear that they honestly believe the president hasn’t done nearly enough to target Black unemployment and live in fear that he’ll cave on the next big issue during critical negotiations with Republican leaders. Almost three years in, they’re still figuring out how to balance that fine line between criticizing administration policies and not appearing to criticize the man who leads the administration itself.

“This is an unprecedented circumstance where an African-American president who is an iconic, heroic figure enjoys a status with African-Americans that no one since Martin Luther King has enjoyed,” former CBC member Artur Davis told McClatchy.

I’m wondering if Obama, who has a pretty good sense of humor, will use the aborted protest as part of a joke when he addresses the group during Saturday’s gala dinner. If so, will it be a funny moment or plain old awkward?

(Photo: Harvard.edu)

Barack Obama’s ascension to the nation’s highest office is an achievement that almost all African-Americans — including those of different ideological stripes—have collectively enjoyed. But some of his most vocal critics, most notably PBS host Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Cornel West, who once could be counted among Obama’s most avid supporters, have turned against him. West has even joined forces with consumer advocate Ralph Nader to find a Democrat to challenge the president’s re-election bid. Some critics have charged that Obama isn’t Black enough, others say he doesn’t pay enough attention to Black issues.

They couldn’t be more wrong, argues Randall Kennedy, an African-American Harvard Law School professor, in an opinion piece that he penned for CNN this week. Nor are their actions surprising. Kennedy said that the loyalties of African-Americans who achieve great success in mainstream America are frequently called into question and causes a level of anxiety. Perhaps more important, they get more media attention “that is far greater than their representativeness of Black America or their influence within it” deserves, as some people have suggested is the case with Smiley and West.

Black rank-and-file Democrats, Kennedy adds, have a more realistic understanding for what Obama has been up against since before he even took office — namely a horrific economic climate, and, let’s be honest with ourselves — a degree of racism, or as Kennedy puts it, “racial resentment.”

Even though the number of Black Obama detractors is small, he warns that that their criticisms could influence some Black voters and diminish their support for the president next year when he will need all of the support he can get during what will surely be a rough and tumble fight to win re-election.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Allen West has chosen an interesting way to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He hosted a press conference at which most of the participants slammed Islam and screened a virulently anti-Muslim documentary, titled Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque. Produced in association with the Christian Action Network, the film focuses on a proposed Islamic cultural center that was to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero. Opponents say the entire area is sacred ground and in essence a massive grave.

The event featured individuals who for the decade have struggled to overcome the inexplicable loss of loved ones who were killed on that fateful day. Only those who have experienced such a tragedy can truly share their pain, and it is good for them to have forums in which to express it.  Some even acknowledged that there are no legal or constitutional reasons to prohibit what they’ve dubbed a “morally wrong mega-mosque,” but other sentiments shared were alarming and verging on jingoism.

One speaker declared that Islam is not even a religion–and West agreed. According to the Florida lawmaker, it’s a “theocratic political construct ideology” in desperate need of reform. He also said that he fears Americans have not learned anything from the attacks and are unwilling to confront the threat of Islamic extremists both here and abroad, because it is politically incorrect.

“I am not sitting up here condemning people who call themselves Muslims. Now is the time we have to challenge this ideology,” West said. “If we are to peacefully coexist they have to come into the 21^st century and push aside a lot of these seventh-century ideas they still hold.”

This week is supposed to be about healing, but such vitriol is far from soothing. And it begs the question: What would Harriet Tubman think?

(Photo: David Limbaugh)

After seeing this photo juxtaposing Texas Gov. Rick Perry and President Obama, I am really shocked—and kind of saddened—by just how awful some people are. This latest example of extreme disrespect comes courtesy of Rush Limbaugh’s brother David, who tweeted the  photo late last month. He says the image, which clearly has racist undertones, was sent to him by a friend.

I wish that people who don’t have black or brown skin would start calling out the people who are so appalled that America elected an African-American president, that they will say, tweet and email just about anything.

Some people will undoubtedly be bothered by the “boys” reference, which I don’t have a problem with. But the patriot vs. the pimp daddy implication is extremely offensive because it reinforces the belief within the Tea Party movement and among far-right conservatives that Obama is un-presidential and not fit for office or deserving of the respect it normally commands. It is also an inaccurate comparison. Perry was actually 22 when his photo was taken, while the future president was closer to 19 or 20.

I hope Obama is writing about this stuff for his next memoir. Luckily, he developed a thick skin and cool demeanor in Indonesia where the children were at first really mean, and his mother taught him to not react. Little did she know that she was preparing him to deal with the likes of David and Rush Limbaugh.