Wow. Here I thought Mitt Romney's cruel streak was in that he likes to fire people. Five of Romney's former classmates from a prestigious all-boys college prep school recall a "vicious" attack on a new student who Romney and others believed to be gay.

The Washington Post reports:

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

Romney never received any punishment for his actions.

Lauber was expelled from the school after being caught smoking on school grounds. He "came out" to family and close friends. Among other jobs, he later worked as a civilian contractor in Bosnia and Iraq. He died of liver cancer in 2004, according to his sisters.

You'd think there was no news out there if you were a Daily Caller reader. Because the Really Big News on the Daily Caller concerns a Heritage Foundation guy by the name of Rob Bluey. Rob is upset, and claims that Jesse Lee, the White House new media guy, is 'bullying' people on Twitter. Note: that link goes to Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson's whine cellar.

One such example happened last week in a dispute over the budget.

Eder posted this tweet: “Hmm…it can’t be true that @SenateDems haven’t passed a budget in 790 days and the only plan Obama has is a speech. Right, @jesseclee44?”

To which Lee responded: “@keder @SenateDems Plan is keep negotiating w/ Rs & Ds, not default & trash economy, not voucherize Medicare to fund more tax cuts for rich.”

Give me a break. If this is bullying, I'm writing this upside down while hanging from a tree in upside-down land, where everything right side up is upside down. Compare and contrast Jesse Lee's response with this one from Andrew Breitbart:

Well, maybe not bullying. Maybe more like flaming someone. But whatever. I debated even writing about this, except that the point of Mr. Bluey's whine is so disingenuous. First, he whines about Jesse Lee, and then likens that to White House bullying of the press. Only, the three examples he gives of this alleged bullying have nothing to do with Jesse Lee or Twitter or the White House. Maybe he could actually take aim at the guy responsible for two of them -- Jay Carney, and then tell the truth about the White House response to Mark Halperin's stupidity on the air last week.

Bullying online is real and it's scary when it happens. Trivializing it this way for political whine points is yet another cynical effort to pin the tail on the white house donkey when it's still stuck to the elephant. While I expect little more from the likes of Tucker Carlson, I thought the esteemed Heritage Foundation was above such idiocy.

Oh, wait. Here's why, via Jason Linkins on the Huffington Post:

"The Heritage Foundation was on the receiving end last week from both Lee and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, both of whom maintain official White House accounts on Twitter that are subject to archival under the Presidential Records Act," writes the article's author, Rob Bluey, who is also the director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation. So, basically, this whole article is just a complicated way of asking Lee to please stop criticizing the Heritage Foundation on Twitter. What a world!

Aw, Tuckie. Get the bad bully for Rob Bluey, pretty please?

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie revels in his bullying style, as do most conservatives, but it's really starting to backfire on him. Verbally beating up on teachers and school administrators and other public servants makes him huggable with the psychos who watch John Stossel, but to the general public it makes him about as huggable as Lotso.

This is being reflected in the polls of New Jersey voters. And he's losing women at a very fast rate.

One example came back in April, when Chris Christie urged reporters to 'take the bat' to 76-year-old widow.

Isn't he so sweet? Earlier this week, Christie took more flack for the way he treated a woman who called in complaining about the way he's slashing funds to public education while sending his kids to private school.

He told Gail it was none of her business.

On the Today Show this morning, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) defended his belittling of a constituent who asked the governor if he sends his kids to private or public school. Christie has slashed public education spending so severely that the state Supreme Court overruled him.

However, when the woman called into a local TV interview Christie was giving this month to see if he understood first-hand the devastating effects of his cuts, the governor went off on the woman, angrily saying, “Hey Gail, you know what, first of all it’s none of your business.” Christie sends his kids to private school. This morning, Today Show host Matt Lauer brought up the incident, asking, “Why isn’t it a fair question?” “Her point is completely ridiculous,” Chrisitie snapped, calling the woman “nonsensical.”

On Meet The Press, Christie tried to downplay the exchange with Gail by telling David Gregory he's just a huggable and loveable guy.

GREGORY: Now I'm familiar with the substance of you what said, which is you're a taxpayer. You pay-- property taxes. You're the governor of everybody. You're working for the best public schools for everybody. For religious reasons-- you and your wife decided to send your kids to parochial schools. My question is more about your temperament. Is-- should the chief executive speak to people that way?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Damn right he should. You know why? Because this is who I am. And the public knows they get it straight from me. And so what I said to her was, "Don't question my wife and my-- and my parenting decisions." That's the most personal thing that you can say to someone. You're a father. You know this.

These parenting decisions we make from the heart. There's no one more precious in my life than my wife and my four children. And when we make those decisions, that's not appropriate for public inquiry. I made that decision because I believe, David, in my heart, that's the right thing.

And so you know what? I am very blunt, I am very direct and you know what? So was she. And you look at her tone and her demeanor in that question, so was she. She's questioning my ability as a public officer holder to make decisions about every child in New Jersey and their public education because my children go to parochial school? Well, I went to public schools in New Jersey. I'm a product of the public schools. And so you're-- you know what? Absolutely. I wish more people in public life would respond just that way.

DAVID GREGORY: But authenticity is one thing. But we all can be better in the public square -- how we interact with people. Are you too abrasive? Are you too stubborn? Are you too-- tough when it comes to people questioning you?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: I'm huggable and loveable, David. I am not abrasive at all. I-- listen, I'm honest. And I wish we had more of it in politics. You know what people are tired of in politics? They're tired of blow dried-- tested answers that are given by political consultants to politicians and everybody sounds the same. (BABBLING) And everybody sounds the same.

He's just lying when he says he's not abrasive and he knows it. Conservatives love a mean-spirited bully as a politician and that's why they've been begging him to run in 2012. He can't hide from ugly incidents like this even if the national press has been slobbering all over him.

Eric Boehlert writes:

I realize much of the D.C. press corps is crushing on Christie. But before they announce that "people" are responding to the governor's "plain talk," pundits might want to find out if that response extends beyond their professional class.

Everybody remembers how Toy Story 3 ends, right? Lotso's new home is on the front grill of a truck. And the entire audience cheers.

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Remember his unhinged performance in this video from CPAC? Well, he continues to astound us all.

Once again Andrew Breitbart demonstrates that he's a major league smear merchant, who has no shame---only disgrace. Really, this one takes the cake.

Joan Walsh:

His "proof" that black congressmen lied about being called "nigger" is as useless as his ACORN clips. Andrew Breitbart isn't fit to spit-shine the shoes of civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis. It's ludicrous to think that the right-wing bully believed he had the moral or political standing to call Lewis a liar, after Lewis and two other black congressmen reported they were called "nigger" by tea partiers during the healthcare reform vote March 20. Lewis's word on the confrontation is good enough for me.

Now comes news that Breitbart is the liar – or at least the misleader. Video he's been peddling to "prove" the congressmen were not called the N-word was actually after the slurs occurred. As a friend notes, "It's like running video of the Twin Towers on 9/10 to prove 9/11 didn't happen." Of course the videos Breitbart peddled to claim ACORN helped a supposed pimp and prostitute set up a child-prostitution ring have also been found misleading, at best. The California Attorney General's review said they were "severely edited" and in fact "showed no violation of the law." New York authorities concluded the same thing.

AP has the full scoop.

A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.

Breitbart posted two columns on his Web site saying the claims were fabricated. Both led with a 48-second YouTube video showing Lewis, Carson, other Congressional Black Caucus members and staffers leaving the Capitol. Some of the group were videotaping the booing crowd.

Breitbart asked why the epithet was not captured by the black lawmakers' cameras, and why nobody reacted as if they had heard the slur. He also questioned whether the epithets could have been shouted by liberals planted in the crowd.

But the 48-second video was shot as the group was leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after Lewis, D-Ga., and Carson walked to the Capitol, which is when they said the slurs were used.

Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.

"I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.

AP also reports that Rep. Heath Shuler – a Blue Dog Democrat from North Carolina, no raving lefty – says he heard the slurs too.

That's four congressmen vs. Breitbart and his tea-party bullies. Which story do you believe?

He says his videos aren't conclusive proof on his site. Really, you Richard Nixon wannabe. Then WTF are they on your site for you?

I met with Barney Frank last week and he backed up the claims of hatred that happened to him and told me that he was indeed called a faggot.

Hey Andrew, bring over the 100K to my house. We have mutual friends that can set it up. I'm here waiting to collect it and I'll deliver the money to John Lewis.

James O'Keefe has a good mentor. doesn't he?

Digby continues with more acts of racism:

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Judd Gregg just had a meltdown on MSNBC that came out of nowhere. He's been attacking everything Obama, almost from the minute he turned down a Cabinet post offer from the White House, but his performance today was really weird. The conversation was about spending and, as usual, Gregg was acting like the incredible deficit freak that he is.

Melissa Francis is a CNBC talker who believes just like he does, and for some reason he mistook her for a dirty f*&king hippy and claimed she was setting him up as a man who wants to cut all spending on education. In fact, the only thing people like him and Ron Paul believe will work for America is to cut all government spending and federal programs and then just give tax cuts to the rich.

Then, Contessa Brewer brought up the fact that many economists think that when FDR became a deficit hawk so soon after expanding spending that he helped stop the country's economic growth. She asked him if he thought money from education should be cut, he went off and called them liars.

Gregg: First off, nobody is saying no money for schools, what an absurd statement to make. And what a dishonest statement to make. On its face you're being fundamentally dishonest when you make that type of statement.

Brewer: Senator, you're going to be asked to cut certain programs from government if you're on the Senate banking committee. Which programs -- just tell us -- would you cut?

--

Gregg: And then it gets misrepresented by people like yourself who say they are going to, if you do any of this stuff you're going to end up not funding education. I mean that statement alone is the most irresponsible statement I've heard from a reporter probably in a month.

Brewer: It wasn't a statement, it was a question.

Gregg deliberately misconstrued what they said, and the conversation went downhill from there. Gregg acted like a typical conservative bully around women, and if they were both men he would not have tried to call them liars. Meanwhile, Contessa ended the interview very professionally. He owes Brewer and Francis an apology for his behavior.

And Digby explains why the question about cutting education is based in reality.

I'll let Gregg's tantrum stand on it's own. But I would just point out that it's not absurd in the least to ask if Republicans would cut education. Indeed, it's absurd to suggest otherwise:

President Ronald Reagan promised during the 1980 presidential election to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet post,[1] but he was not able to do so with a Democratic House of Representatives. In the 1982 State of the Union Address, he pledged:

“

The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education.[2]

”

Throughout the 1980s, the abolition of the Department of Education was a part of the Republican Party platform, but the administration of President George H. W. Bush declined to implement this idea.

So, not only was Brewer right to ask whether Gregg planned to cut education as part of a deficit reduction plan, there has been a very longstanding belief among conservatives that they should not be funding education at all.

If there was anyone at fault for spreading misinformation and lies on television it's Gregg with his irresponsible deficit fearmongering and Hooverite prescriptions for the economy. God help us if he and his ilk actually get their way.

And you can't help but scratch your head when you think that a year ago, when everyone knew that the economy was in deep trouble and would need a lot of stimulus, the administration actually named this guy to be Commerce Secretary, a department which Gregg had voted to eliminate as well. That tells you a lot about their judgment at the time.

Digby wrote up the full transcript:

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From the New York Times:

It was a media cage fight, televised every weeknight at 8 p.m. But the match was halted when the blood started to spray executives in the high-priced seats.

For years Keith Olbermann of MSNBC had savaged his prime-time nemesis Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and accused Fox of journalistic malpractice almost nightly. Mr. O’Reilly in turn criticized Mr. Olbermann’s bosses and led an exceptional campaign against General Electric, the parent company of MSNBC.

It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to bring it to an end.

Come to think of it, Keith did announce he was dropping his signature "BillO" voice -- but it's not clear that he's going to play ball:

Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation, said by e-mail message, “I am party to no deal,” adding that he would not have been included in any conversations between G.E. and the News Corporation. Fox News said it would not comment. Read on...

Here's the conundrum for Keith Olbermann -- Does he obey the corporate bigwigs and ignore O'Reilly, or does he continue to expose and publicly humiliate a lunatic, right wing bully who picks on kidnapped and sick children, and played a very public role in the murder of Dr. George Tiller? Keith...what say you?

Matthew Yglesias: Only wingnuts (and Bill Cosby) would rush to defend a police bully. One thing's certain, race wasn't involved

Democratic Strategist: The California budget battle shows how ideologues can undermine health care

Empire Burlesque: Pay for Play: Brief glimpses of the system at work

Buck Naked Politics: Fascinating reframe of Bush inTIME Magazine article

The Impolitic: Media fail on the health care presser

AIDS Action: GOP set to oppose lifting the needle exchange ban. A U.S. House floor vote on syringe exchange programs, as soon as today. The Rules Committee on Thursday night approved an amendment by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) to specifically ban funding for the lifesaving programs. Make your voice heard!

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Yes, Bill O'Reilly, it really is a crappy thing when major public figures -- or pissant ankle-biters -- can outrageously smear other public figures as "racist" and do so with impunity and repeatedly. That's what BillO was on about last night, anyway.

But no, he wasn't talking about Sonia Sotomayor. She's just a minor figure, after all. O'Reilly was talking about his own august self. Of course.

It was really quite the stomach-churning whinefest. He started off ranting that "my civil rights" and "my rights as an American" had been violated because he's been branded a "racist" on numerous occasions, which he claims is "libel." Then he indulged one of his periodic bully-the-women routines ("My rights were violated here!"), where he had on two female lawyers who proceeded to explain to him that he was full of crap. This, of course, did not sit well with O'Reilly, who ended up shaking his finger at them and accusing them of enabling the destruction of America.

Along the way, he managed to emit some momentous howlers:

If I were a minority, they couldn't do this to me. You know it. You know it, Tonia. If I were African-American like you are, and they started to do all this kind of stuff, I could kill 'em. And that's my point now. White Americans, Miss California, their rights are being violated, at least the spirit of their rights, by these unbelievable attacks, personal attacks.

...

They're attacking people who disagree with them in very personal ways. That's what they're doing. Don't dodge it.

Then, when they pointed out that the same could be said of his own behavior, he flew into a barely contained rage:

Wait a minute! Hold it! Tonia, keep quiet. I don't dish it out, madam. I don't do that stuff. Don't sit here and say I do. ... We don't do that here. Ever.

And then, at the end of the show? His usual segment of "Pinheads and Patriots." The "Pinheads" segment featured Barbra Streisand:

On the Pinhead front, Barbra Streisand's gonna write a book -- about design. It's gonna tell us all about her mansion in Malibu. I just can't wait for that, can you? No truth to the rumor she'll be concentrating on designs in ... Red Square!

That, of course, is only a sampling of the nonstop flow of "attacking people who disagree with them in very personal ways" on The O'Reilly Factor. Indeed, his whole show is built around it.

Every single night on his show, O'Reilly demonizes liberals. It's what he does. His critics are all "far-left loons" and "haters" who he himself has compared on a regular basis to Nazis and the Klan. Guess he doesn't much care for it when the shoe's on the other foot.

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Jesse Ventura has been going on TV a lot lately because he's promoting his new book, but he's been littering the airwaves with the carcasses of dead conservative talking points when it comes to the topic of torture and George Bush.

Elisabeth Hasslebeck had had the misfortune of trying to tackle Ventura earlier on The View, and had been exposed for the moron she is, especially on torture. So Ventura was on "Hannity" last night and much the same kind of complete and utter smackdown proceeded.

Best of all, get this: Sean Hannity thinks America is better off after George Bush instead of before. I'm serious. I'll do a Conservative/Pelosi impression on him and say that he's either a very sick man mentally a complete liar, a hairpiece hag or all three.

Hannity also did his teleprompter bit on Obama. Here's just a few of Hannity's insane ramblings (buckle up, it's a rough ride). Sean tried his best to get Jesse to bite on the "Bush inherited a rescession" bit -- which, um, didn't go very well...

Ventura: You're telling me that the United States was better off after George Bush or before him?

Hannity: After.

Ventura: Oh, my God. How can you make that statement?

Hannity: I just did..and I'll tell you why...

Ventura: It's ridiculous...This country was far better off (No.) before George Bush then it is after George Bush.

Hannity then read off his usual list of Islamofascist horrors confronting America and he asks Ventura what he would do.

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It’s a necessary evil tucked into the president’s job description: the chief executive is supposed to also be a good salesman. Presidents have a unique megaphone and bully pulpit, which they have to use effectively if they plan on getting what they want.

With that in mind, McClatchy’s Steven Thomma makes a good observation: Bush is really bad at this.

President Bush now has what he asked for — time to sell the people and the Congress on the Iraq war.

But an extra 60 days from Congress, the addition of the talented Ed Gillespie to run the White House communications strategy, and a newly ramped-up sales pitch cannot change the underlying fact: George Bush is a poor salesman.

He’s never really sold the country or Congress something it didn’t already want. And when he’s tried to sell something the people or the politicians didn’t want, he’s fallen flat.

No wonder Newt wants Bush to stay home and keep quiet when it comes to war policy -- when the president makes a public pitch, his idea tends to get less popular, not more.