Post Partisan- Washington Post Suddenly Interested in Background of Presidential Candidates Four Years Too Late

The day after President Obama expressed his support for gay marriage in an interview with ABC News last week, the Washington Post published an article about presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's high school days that had many observers saying 'Well that certainly was convenient'

According to the May 10th article, a couple of Mitt Romney's former classmates at Cranbook- some of whom worked on Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign- recounted some pranks and incidents that the Washington Post described as 'disturbing'.

The highlight of the article was a 1965 incident where Romeny allegedly held down and shaved the head of schoolmate John Lauber, who the Post described 'preseumed homosexual'. If the timing of the article about what Romney allegedly did to a 'presumed homosexual' classmate doesn't smell like a truckload of fish left by the side of the road, how about the fact that one of Romney's classmates gave conflicting accounts over whether or not he witnessed the alleged incident in a seperate ABC interview?

Although Lauber passed away in 2004 from liver cancer, his family has weighed in on his behalf, saying they were unaware of any such incident while he was at Cranbrook. One of Lauber's sister released a statement shortly after the Post story broke last week.

Betsy Lauber, one of John Lauber’s three sisters, spoke with ABC News Tuesday night regarding the accuracy of the story.

“The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family,” she said.

For his part, Romney admitted to pulling several pranks while at the prestigous Michigan school and apologizing for them while not remembering the incident mentioned in the Post article.

Interestingly, polls indicate that a majority of Americans believe that Obama made last week's announcement for political reasons rather than his self-described 'evolution' on the issue of gay marriage. Although an average of one in six of Obama's campaign bundlers is reportedly gay, the issue hasn't changed anybody's mind and may cost him in the polls.

Exit question- Isn't it rather odd that the Washington Post decides to start looking into the formative years of a Presidential candidate now instead of back in 2008?