The president of NOW forgets the first rule of holes
Which is “when you’re in one, stop digging.”
Actually, it’s only Hilary Rosen and Terry O’Neill who have the experience and imagination to understand. I’m certain of it. They just don’t have the experience and imagination to change the subject at this point.
I think there are a couple of things going on here. One is that people on the left tend to move in a bubble where their views seem quite mainstream and uncontroversial. For example, to say “Ann Romney never worked a day in her life” would be the sort of thing that would tend to get sage nods of agreement all around if you said it in most liberal circles. And “everybody knows” that the Romneys are out-of-touch rich people who look like the cast of “Mad Men,” just as “everybody knows” that stay-at-home moms are wealthy (which doesn’t appear to be true; see this). So why not say it? It would appear to be a winner.
Not so much, it turns out—as the more-savvy Michelle and Barack Obama, as well as David Axelrod, seem to know, since they all quickly distanced themselves from Rosen’s remarks.
Another thing both Rosen and O’Neill did not seem to be aware of is that attacking Ann Romney in any way can only serve to help the Romney campaign. When I saw the Romneys in person back in January, it didn’t take but a moment to note that Ann Romney is probably the biggest asset of the Romney campaign. She’s a natural, a person I would think it almost impossible for anyone to dislike (although they’ll try, they’ll try). Smart, relaxed, confident, attractive, articulate, funny, warm…well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. And now that the spotlight has been shone on her by her would-be detractors, she gets to shine a lot more than she had so far.
“So why not say it?” Yes indeed. Nobody in that cohort would think, for a moment, that attacking “motherhood” in America would be anything other than a winning strategy.
Especially if the only “motherhood” you and your friends know is a twisted version of it that, in passing, hates the marriage that so often precedes motherhood.
“A short time later, Mitt Romney himself, ever precise, used an even more specific figure out on the campaign trail. “This is an amazing statistic,” he told a group of women business owners in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday. “Ninety-two-point-three percent of all the jobs lost during the Obama years have been lost by women. Ninety-two-point-three percent! … The real war on women is being waged by the president’s failed economic policies.”
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/york-time-cease-fire-phony-war-women/478266
I couldn’t be more encouraged. This is smart, straight, good stuff from Romney following up on Romney’s good jab regarding Obama’s Russian sensibilities. Now we see the depth behind the man including the political gifts of his wife and her Tea Party associations, and were approaching hope for change.
Just how air-tight is that bubble? Just how myopic and parochial does being trapped in that infernal bubble make one? I should think even complete sensory deprivation could not so completely disengage one from so great a chunk of reality.
Then it dawns on me that these women are not obtuse but are engaging in an argument whereby the definition of woman has been greatly narrowed and is expressed not physiologically but politically/ideologically. Excuse the coarseness — the test is not mine but another woman’s — but you could lift up Ann Romney’s skirt and it wouldn’t prove a thing to these women — or NOW, or any of the rest of the differently-sexed Left.
The so-called “progressives” . . . their mouths are the gift that keeps on giving.
I say this is a perfect time to introduce Ann Romney in a big way… an example of a confident, intelligent woman who has made the choice (one among many that she could make) to be a “stay at home” mother and wife.
Since the very beginning of this campaign, I’ve suggested Michelle Bachman as a possible Romney veep. She is, likewise, intelligent, confident, and capable of answering back at the left . . . and she is seen as a tea party backed candidate who can balance the presumed more “centrist conservative” Romney. And now… yet another reason for someone like Bachman: she would undermine the notion that the left speaks for women, and at the same time drive the left absolutely up the wall.
neo: describing Ann Romney: “Smart, relaxed, confident, attractive, articulate, funny, warm…well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. ”
Careful there, neo, I hear the progressive claws being sharpened already. They must believe such a woman has deep, dark secrets – you know, like Sarah Palin. ;>} Besides, she just makes our present FLOTUS look so, well, low class. We can’t have that now, can we? IMO, the attacks have just begun.
Also, their marriage and life have been too……..perfect. The progressives KNOW it is all fake. Or the result of way too much ill gotten money obtained through the evil practices of investment banking. Yes, money is the root of all evil…..except in the hands of the Feds, where it becomes a great instrument for good. How do I know this? My progressive neighbors tell me.
I suspect they’ll manage to drum up plenty of dislike for Ann Romney. There are few things the Left hates more than a “smart, relaxed, confident, attractive, articulate, funny, warm” REPUBLICAN woman, especially if she has a lot of kids. See Sarah Palin.
Obama saying Ann Romney is off limits just means he has NO DIRT, so he can take the high road, doesn’t cost him anything.
He’s failing. he won’t go down without a fight and a wounded animal can be dangerous, but he’ll lose 60/40.
J.L.: I think Bachmann would be a poor choice. Too transparent an appeal to women, for starters. And she’s a woman who’s too similar (in the public mind, anyway) to Sarah Palin, so the whole thing would echo McCain’s choice in 2008.
“One is that people on the left tend to move in a bubble where their views seem quite mainstream and uncontroversial.
Nothing really new; Do others here remember:
“How did Nixon win? Nobody I know voted for him!”
But, I also wonder if this wasn’t some sort of “testing the waters” on the part of the Obama campaign; test the waters early and distance yourself if it doesn’t work. Rosen isn’t that high up that she can’t be thrown under the bus.
J.J. and Mrs Whatsit:
Progressives will always hate the Romneys.
But the things the left hated about Sarah (and believe me, I know whereof I speak, since I’ve been macerating in Palin-hatred for a long time, having to listen to it rather often) is a class thing: she’s not from Harvard, she hunts, she’s got a Fargo accent, etc. The Romneys are the country club Republican type. The attack will be different, and the perception is different. Palin is the redneck Republican, Ann Romney the out-of-touch patrician spoiled brat. Very very different.
See this, which is somewhat related.
Charles,
Maybe Obama won’t be doing the tossing, but I bet people who need media advisors may be a little less willing to toss out big bucks for an idiot.
Who do we have now on the Obama team? Valerie Jarrett, Deboral Wasserman Schultz, Anita (Mao fan) Dunn, and Hilary Rosen. Typical struggling American women, all. And the Fluke was advised by Rosen’s company too. Boy I can imagine the ads presenting that team to the women of America.
re: the Romney statement noted by Curtis – don’t forget that this particular statistic has just been subjected to the most hilariously transparent piece of doublespeak yet to emerge from Obama’s fawning fan club.
In case you missed it: the Washington Post’s “fact-checker” has declared that the “92% of jobs lost on Obama’s watch were lost by women” statistic is “TRUE BUT FALSE“.
I guess labeling it “True but Not Helpful to Our Boyfriend’s Re-Election Effort” was considered a bit over the top.
“the Washington Post’s “fact-checker” has declared that the “92% of jobs lost on Obama’s watch were lost by women” statistic is “TRUE BUT FALSE“.”
It is to weep.
“”Just how air-tight is that bubble? Just how myopic and parochial does being trapped in that infernal bubble make one? “”
George Pal
Progressivism has morphed into a religion filled with closed minded fundamentalist at its head. They don’t have ideas that they test and scrutinize to decide policies. They have no interest in what fails or succeeds. They have beliefs. Unmovable beliefs.
They want to paint Ann Romney (and, by extension, all Mormom SAHMs – and of course, all SAHMs in general) as “Stepford Wives. That is all.
The reality is that NOW stopped representing the interests of the American Woman when they gladly announced years ago that they would gladly give good ole’ Bill Clinton sexual favors just to keep abortion legal. It was that moment that taught me never to take those elements seriously ever again.
The NOW crowd lives in The Fishbowl. The American Woman lives the world outside of it. Let’s see if any one of the NOW crowd could even do a fiftieth of what a SAHM does during the day. It’d be like fish out of water.
And this is coming from a SAHM.
One interesting side effect of this controversy is that it may accomplish something Romney has had an awfully hard time doing on this own – endear him to the skeptical conservative “base”.
PS – No relation! My only relatives who share my last name are immediate family members (siblings, wife, child)
Alfred E. Newman Moment: Watching the shrewish Terry O’Neil of the N.A.G.s*refer to Hilary “Clinton” is a ‘hoot. And Red Maxine Wa-Wa blathering “Rotney” is a tell on her perpetually pea sized brain.
Have the NAGs reached a membership above..ohhh, say, 200K?
*Rush’s funny name: National Association of Gals.*
Oh, and I’m entusiastically with you , Neo, re-Keep on Digging, Lib-Left Dems! Dig that hole,’Yo, deeper & deeper & deeper. Let us know how the November sky looks from down there.
This conversation about working moms vs sahms takes me back 30 years! Have we really not progressed past this? Have you also noticed that it isn’t the young mothers who are slamming Ann Romney? They seem to be smarter than we were at that age.
Ann Romney is a great example of Mormon women, who really aren’t “Stepford Wives” at all. And neither are other wives and mothers, regardless of their political/religious views who are either working or staying at home. We are human beings doing the best we can to raise our children.
I guess it depends on what the definition of “work” is. Ann Romney HAS worked outside the home. Among other things, she was a board member of United Way of America and helped start its Faith and Action initiative. She’s been involved in a number of children’s charities as well. But I guess it doesn’t count as “work” if you don’t have a big salary and defined benefits.
This political episode reminds me of the last time I watched Oprah. She had on two factions of women: 1) working women who believed that educated women MUST work and that SAHMs sat around eating bonbons, and 2) SAHMs who believed that mothers MUST stay home and that working mothers were selfishly neglecting their children.
There was not a woman in-between, but that’s where most American mothers are.
Re Oprah: of course she is going to have only extreme factions on her show. Conflict -> ratings.