Sneakylong
Kids do stupid shit, especially in teenage years and college. I did stupid shit when I was younger. What's the cutoff date? Is there not a statute of limitations? We seem to give more than enough leeway these days to our elected officials and politicians who continue to do stupid shit well into their middle years. Why should anyone else be held to a different standard, particularly younger kids? We know they're sometimes foolish. We know that because most of us were. It's part of the cycle.
My daughter was caught trying to sneak in alcohol to a UGA football game back when she was a sophomore. She was verbally reprimanded by the security guard at the entry gate, informed that she was underaged to drink alcohol as it was, and that she was breaking the campus rules. And then he poured out the liquor into a trash can, told her to leave, and to never come back to another home game with liquor in her possession, otherwise he would file an official report with the campus dean of admissions.
She called home that evening, crying hysterically... thinking she'd lost her scholarship and that she was gonna get kicked out of school. I gave her the third degree, told her how disappointed I was, and how she was officially under my own personal level of "probation." Any more stupid shit - I pull the funding.
She graduates in three weeks, with honors, with a degree in economics and business management. Should she ever be considered for a CEO position of a company down the road, should that day she tried to sneak in alcohol into a college football game some 25+ years earlier disqualify her? No.
People can change. And I'm not suggesting that Reed has changed. I'm just pointing out that it's not uncommon that people back in their adolescent years often do change and value things differently as they get older and more mature.