Maher: Is Romney's high school bullying a clue to his character?

Friday night on "Real Time with Bill Maher," host Bill Maher and his panel, including anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, actress Eva Longoria, CNN contributor Margaret Hoover and author David Cay Johnston, posed the question as to whether or not the high school antics of former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have a bearing on the man today.

In prep school, Romney and a group of other boys pinned down a classmate who they presumed was gay and cut his hair with scissors because they thought it was too long. The story has resonated throughout the media universe this week and has been seen as particularly damning in light of President Barack Obama's endorsement on Wednesday of same sex marriage.

Maher said that he was initially inclined to give Romney the benefit of the doubt on the issue, saying that everybody does stupid things in high school. But, he said, it matters how you're stupid, what kind of trouble you get into, and the actions of Mitt Romney the schoolyard tough speak volumes about how Mitt Romney the politician and statesman views people who aren't like himself and who he perceives as weak.

Hoover interjects that there are stories of Romney shutting down the offices of Bane Capital for two weeks to search for a partner's missing daughter. Maher countered that this was a person who was just like Romney, another wealthy white man whose kid missed curfew.

Watch the video, embedded via Mediaite, below: