Family Denounces WaPo for Exploiting Lauber

In the New York Times’ followup to Washington Post’s Thursday retrospective on Mitt Romney’s high school years, reporters Ashley Parker and Jodi Kantor relate an incensed statement from the family of John Lauber, the man reportedly given a forced hair trimming by young Mr. Romney.

The Laubers state they are “aggrieved that John would be used to further a political agenda.” The family also asserted, according to Parker on Twitter, that “‘The portrayal of John is factually incorrect,’ but they would not elaborate on how it was inaccurate.”

Let’s reflect on what Washington Post author Jason Horowitz (pictured above) did in his piece yesterday by saying Lauber was “presumably gay” in high school. Even though the man came out to his family years later, it is the height of arrogance to posthumously assume that, at that point in his life, he had recognized and affirmed his own homosexuality. 

Horowitz committed the equivalent of an outing–and one which weaponized a man’s private sexuality. But that’s doesn’t concern the Post and its editors; they have a President to reelect (as the family clearly recognizes), and anyone who gets caught in the crossfire of their attacks on Republicans is an acceptable casualty.