I got nothing but a question: Will outrage over Hilary Rosen’s infamous assertion that a gazillionaire with a household staff embedded in multiple mansions might not be the best economic adviser on the affairs of ordinary American women continue, or will the blind hogs find another acorn today?
Chyron HR
Face it, libs, real Americans are going to rally around Ann Romney after what that evil
Katie CouricTina FeyHillary Rosen said about her. Also UNLIMITED KOCHS IN MY FACE AHUULUGUGZifnab
Why can’t we just learn to keep politics clean and friendly. Rosen should have played within the confines of decency and accused Ms Romney of having a secret video where she refers to someone as “Whitey”. Instead, she had to make crass and insulting comments aimed at Ann’s wealth. Democrats continue to degrade our political culture with these vicious smears.
Rhoda
What I LOVE is how the media is already trolling that Democrats are losing their edge with women over this. Hah! This is great. The Obama campaign distanced themselves from the comments and all this did was reinforce the fact that the Romneys are super rich and clearly a beautiful, traditional family living in a world of beautiful families of all kinds of configurations most of which the women have to work. He still supports the Blunt amendment and it still took two hours for the campaign to decide they were for equal pay; and every time they trot out their female surrogates the democrats point out how they voted against equal pay and for the Blunt amendment. Awesome.
The only worry I have is the economy slowing. Even then, I think it’d be a close fight and President Obama would win. If the economy stays steady and slowly improves as it has done; then he’ll blow Mittens out of the water.
c u n d gulag
Oh, Ann knows hard work, and tough decisions!
You betcha!
My guess is that if the 5 boys didn’t have their own nannies – like Mary Poppins, and their own maids – like Hazel (minus the NY accent), then they had at least one Mr. French-type butler/jack-of-all-trades. If not one each, the at least one for the five of them.
And poor Ann – it took hard work interviewing “The Help” – reading their recommendations, and checking and cross-checking them.
Ok – someone else went through all that. But it’s not as if she could trust her secretary to make the final decision! NO! SHE had to make it. That decision was hers alone! With Mitt’s input, of course, I’m sure.
I’m sure Ann had some very,, very tough decisions to make, like what color riding-outfit to wear with what color dressage horse while riding?
And what the chef should make for dinner?
And what, oh what, to wear to that evenings soiree? Which color and style Balanciaga, which Chanel, which Cardin? And then, what was the appropriate jewelry to wear with the outfit. And the SHOES! Oh, decisions!!!
Oh – the struggles!
Like opening-up that container of Beluga caviar!
Struggling with which vintage wine to serve with dinner, and the cork on the vintage champagne!
Oh! The humanities!!!
And nothing teaches a woman what teenage and young women want and need, and their trials and tribulations, more that “raising” 5 sons like Ben, Craig, Josh, Matt, & Tagg, in mansions and chalet’s.
Why, having a boy with more than one syllable might have made it tougher to get good, cheap, help – so keep it to one syllable, and keep it simple.
Ann Romney grew-up in a very well-off family. I’m not going to say she was spoiled when she was a child, but she DID go to a private school – which speaks volumes to me. Then she married a guy who had some Daddy-problems of his own, and was determined to be richer than him.
I’m sorry that she has MS, and has truly struggled with that – but she’s struggling against it with the best medical care money can buy.
Tell that to the waitress at a nearby Waffle House.
If Mitt was his Daddy, I might like him. George earned what he made, and he earned his place in history.
Mitt’s trying to buy his.
But to say that Ann has any clue about what women who aren’t a part of the 1% want and need, is like saying that Mitt knows what Joe Six-pack is thinking because he knows the Coors family, and the former owners of Budweiser – the Busch family.
So, yeah, Ann knows working women!
About to the same extent as her husband knows working men.
They know as much about their lives, as I do about the lives of the beings on the planet WEALTHDAR!
Mitt, just keep on keepin’ on!
In an election year when an “Old-School Republican” could win in a landslide – Conservatives offer wealthy “Private School,” and “Home-Schooled,” choices!
And we Liberals and Democrats want to thank you!
That doesn’t, however, mean that we can take a break – it means we need to redouble our efforts to win in November.
Chyron HR
Also, too, Hillary “Rosen”? Sounds like one of those Alinskyites. A real George Soros-type. You know what I mean.
El Cid
Queen Elizabeth was a stay at home Mom.
JPL
Cory Booker ran into a burning house saved a woman and yet the haters take time to comment… link
One commenter decided it was a small fire and it was set up to make Cory look good because everyone knows ……blah, blah, blah.
These folks are evil.
Roger Moore
They aren’t blind, any more than the people who claimed to see the Emperor’s New Clothes were blind.
J.
c) all of the above
Btw, part (all?) of the reason that the fake controversy won’t go away just yet is barely anyone actually saw/listened to the whole exchange or read the transcript in context — thinking instead that Rosen was attacking stay-at-home mothers (who don’t work for a paycheck). This is the problem with our sound-bite-driven world where people don’t have the patience or desire or intellectual curiosity to read or listen to anything for more than a few seconds — or as Paul Krugman refers to it, post-truth politics.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I was talking to my wife about this. What I find most ironic is that Hilary Rosen is herself a mother. Well, that, and the fact that the people screeching the loudest about this are the same clowns who twisted themselves inside out telling us why it wasn’t sexist or “beyond the pale” or whatever that Rush Limbaugh took three days to slander a law student for testifying to Congress about birth control.
I can see that Rosen put it somewhat artlessly, though to be fair, she was speaking off the cuff; but even if she’d said something like, “Well, Ann Romney has never had to worry about where the money to take care of her family was coming from, not once in her life,” they’d still find something about that that was an outrage. These people need a serious beating. I’d like it to be physical, but I’m willing to live with an electoral beating…
MattF
The whole “Good, pure, sweet Ann Romney will overcome all that evil stuff the soshalist Kenyans are saying about us” idea is wacky and desperate. Just because it’s repeated over and over again doesn’t make it true. No, really.
Napoleon
I have been wondering if not only will this not work for the Republicans (IMO they will not pick up one vote from it) but if it will actually hurt them for this reason. It focuses on the fact that they are disconnected from every day life.
J.
@El Cid: Elizabeth, the ultimate welfare queen!
JPL
@JPL: I’m in moderation and I can’t figure out why. My comment was on Cory Book.er so maybe his last name is blocked.
Please unblock me..
cmorenc
Hilary Rosen’s comment was unwise and counterproductive, but will be quickly forgotten within a week. Stay-at-home moms don’t really like it, but nevertheless understand the profound difference between Ann Romney’s situation and their own. By contrast, Rush’s Sandra Fluke comments have lasting legs, and hits women at a far deeper, more vulnerable level.
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
Anyone who thinks that anyone pulling the lever 7 months from now will be making their decision based on what some nobody said about Mitt Romney’s wife in April that allegedly hurt her feelings a little needs to be punched in the neck.
kdaug
I like acorns.
beltane
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Romney understand work in the usual sense of the term. Honestly, if Ann Romney “worked” as a lobbyist or media figure like some other set-for-life Republican wives she still would have no clue as to how normal people live. The issue should not be whether she stayed home to care for her children (people in her social class have staff to take care of the dirty work anyway) but that both she and her husband have lived a very sheltered existence far removed from the cares and concerns of the 99%.
People like the Romneys form an aristocracy that has exchanged noblesse oblige with a sense of entitlement and grievance. She is, in short, no Princess Di.
FlyingToaster
According to a diarist at the GOS, the GOP is continuing to eat their own.
And since when was lobbyist Hilary Rosen a Democratic strategist? The former head of the RIAA is not _my_ idea of a liberal icon.
4tehlulz
This whole kerfuffle has been instructive, even if somehow the Obama campaign is on the losing end. The Romneys seem…sensitive…to looking like they had it easy. Obvious tell is obvious.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@J.: Yeah, I had dinner with my parents last night. My mom, who works at the county jail, got the single sentence from her coworkers, who are Republicans, and so she came in angry – though my dad was the one who stayed at home due to his Epilepsy – talking about how this lady, who worked for Obama, was badmouthing moms. I had to explain to her the whole context.
Violet
@the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady):
Yeah, exactly. This happened in April. People aren’t going to care in November. Now if it was President Obama himself who said it, that might be different. But someone who has probably mostly hurt her own punditry career? Not a huge deal.
beltane
@cmorenc: I agree completely. The problem with corporatist Dems like Hilary Rosen is that they don’t speak the language of class war very well (probably because they agree with people like Romney in many respects) so they chose to stake their ground in some micro-targeted culture war battle. Luckily, Rosen is a B-list pundit at best and I don’t see her words having any lasting significance one way or another.
Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, called every sexually active woman in American a prostitute, and used his radio show to sexually harass a young women who was not a public figure.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
What a media whore, right? What with all the shoveling people’s sidewalks and rescuing them from burning buildings and all.
butler
By the GOP’s own logic, isn’t Ann Romney a Moocher? She has no job, earns no money, pays no taxes, and creates no jobs. Isn’t it a GOP article of faith that people like her contribute nothing since they produce nothing of positive economic value, the GOP’s universal measure how whether or not a person has value?
russell
The blind pigs will find more acorns, but they will also chew on this one for a while, because it proves that LIBERALS HATE FAMILIES.
Because, of course, Rosen’s comment was all about how Ann Romney is a stay-at-home mom, and was not at all about the fact that Ann Romney has never had to work because she’s always been freaking wealthy.
Why worry about money? When you run out, you go to the bank and get some more, silly!
beltane
@butler: That’s what ticked me off about Rosen’s comment. She attacked Romney from the right, something I would fully expect of a pundit from the Lanny Davis wing of the Democratic party.
JPL
@Roger Moore: http://www.nj.com had a decent article but the comments were vicious.
El Cid
Rosen was just furious because a woman raised children instead or aborting them all, because Democrats want to kill all children.
Elizabelle
I think a lot of Villagers are so divorced from the realities of most American women’s lives that they don’t get this story.
This isn’t about an insult to Ann Romney.
It’s about the fact that most American parents don’t have the “choice” to stay at home and raise their families. A lot get to choose between staying at home and the family’s having healthcare. Or a house. Or a college education for the kids. (Anecdotally, I hear so many stories from friends and family about how it’s the wife’s job that provides the healthcare. Hear that over and over again.)
Also think this is cable throwing out an easily discussed poutrage du jour/canned controversy for the Dancing with the Stars crowd.
Don’t forget: the Republican line is that women care about the economy. They don’t care about contraception. (Nikki Haley told us that; so did Mitt Romney.)
(How that squares with your employer having you out for multiple pregnancies on the company’s dime, or that a lot of families can’t support five children … well, we’re discussing Ann Romney and that mean Hilary Rosen now, aren’t we?)
Roger Moore
@JPL:
Looks like fairly typical right wing flying monkey squad stuff. Read almost any article on a newspaper site that allows public comments and you’ll get the same filth.
PeakVT
@FlyingToaster: At least according to her wikipedia entry (which has seen it’s own attack of the fly monkeys in the last 24 hours) she’s never worked for a political campaign or Democratic Party organization.
Jamey
Still pissed at Hilary Rosen for how she made it easier for big business to nose around in our virtual underwear drawers back in ’02 (RIAA v. file sharing). And in the years since, she’s basically cowered behind her status as a rare and special Liberal snowflake to advance some pretty asshatted positions.
Can’t President Obama shiv Hilary–go the full Sistah Souljah on her? It’d be a toofer–come out in defense of motherhood (because, of course, we Libs are totally against mothers…), and we’d be rid of one of the most supremely self-absorbed and selfish “liberal” loose cannons in the DC firmament.
llr
Here’s a comment from a very non-political blog I read:
I replied asking her if she was delusional but my god, the stoopid, it burns!
Hoodie
It’s only a silly intertube controversy because that’s what the Republicans want to make it. The Republican poutrage is pre-emptive, they want Dems to voluntarily take this issue to be off the table precisely because Romney is getting hammered by the gender gap. Accordingly, it would be dumb for Dems to allow it to go away; rather, they need to fine tune the attack now that everyone’s attention is piqued. Rosen hit a real vulnerability in the Romney campaign, the fact that it’s premised on a mythological, out of touch view of the world. The more you unravel the controversy, the worse it looks for Romney. It reveals a guy who outsources women’s issues to his stay at home mom wife who, unlike most stay at home moms, has never had to worry about the family budget and isn’t stuck with the dilemma of whether to work outside the home because of economic concerns. She really has had a choice, and it would be dandy if most moms (and dads) had such a choice. But it hits at the core theme that, notwithstanding Republican blather about economic freedom and choice, only rich people have such choices. The reality is that most real moms don’t have such a choice because they either have to stay home because they can’t make enough to cover child care or have to work because that’s the only way their kids will eat or go to college. In addition, if Republicans have their way, it will be harder for those real moms to be able to exercise reproductive choice. Ann Romney never has had to deal with any of that, and the fact that Mitt Romney uses her as a front for those issues shows you where he’s coming from. It’s kind of like making Micheal Brown head of FEMA.
magurakurin
@Zifnab: She shouldn’t have said anything about Ann Romney. Nobody would give a shit what Ann Romney said but for someone commenting on it. Ann Romney isn’t running for president. Democrats on t.v. need to keep their eye on the ball and attack Mitt. Lord knows there is plenty there to attack. Leave his wife out of it. If the Rethugs want to draw the wives and children into the fray, well, that’s their choice. Our team should aim both barrels directly at Mitt and only Mitt.
beltane
Despite what all the dressage pony concern trolls said of the matter, it would have been a far better move to continue to mock Ann Romney for her Austrian warmblood habit and all around ostentatious lifestyle. Remember, even at the height of the French Revolution Marie Antoinette was still able to garner a fair amount of sympathy when the attacks on her focused on her role as a mother.
Elizabelle
@llr:
I think that was snark. There there.
Here’s WaPost website headline on today’s entry:
Firestorm over stay-at-home moms gives GOP edge in ‘war on women’
No it doesn’t.
As seen by the tongue in cheek post above. (Even Republicans don’t think Romney worked his way up by his bootstraps. I don’t think you’d get 27% on that.)
Elizabelle
@Hoodie:
I agree. Well said.
I think this one’s going to break badly for Romney in the long run.
mai naem
Who the hell picked this sentence out? Rosen’s next sentence immediately goes into how Ann hasn’t worked outside the house. Also too, Ann Romney is fer sure wealthy enough to afford a decent dermatologist/plastic surgeon? What’s with the crappy botox lips and crappy botox/plastic forehead? She looks all unsymmetrical and uneven. She seriously needs hints from Nancy Pelosi on where to go to get decent face stuff done. Speaking of Nancy, she was a stay at home mom and working mom.
wormtown
@magurakurin:
I think you are exactly right.
shortstop
This is another Hillary and a certain conversation about cookies all over again, 20 years later. Okay, I’m just going to say this and take my lumps for possible insensitivity. I am about as sick of the delicate self-esteem of many stay-at-home moms as I am of Christians with persecution complexes. If, especially in this economy, your family can afford to have one parent stay at home full time to raise your kids, you should be on your knees giving thanks every morning and night, not fretting about whether someone somewhere is not validating your life. Get the fuck over it and stop looking for insults around every corner.
Roger Moore
@mai naem:
I would cut Ann Romney some slack on her appearance because of the MS. It can do all kinds of crap to the nerves.
lonesomerobot
I’ve got another question: Why is Hilary Rosen, former shill for the major record labels and point-runner for BP during the Gulf Oil spill anywhere close to the Obama campaign?
She’s a career lobbyist and a horrible representative for Obama.
shortstop
@lonesomerobot: She’s not close to the Obama team and she’s not a representative for Obama. That’s the damn point. You’re falling for the media spin.
magurakurin
@mai naem: but the point is why the fuck was Rosen talking about Ann Romney at all, in any context? Why? Ann Romney is entitled to her opinion like anyone else but it is a mistake to give it any weight by commenting on her statements, lifestyle, whatever. In fact, Romney’s lifestyle shouldn’t be the focus either. It should be his shitty policy proposals and his utter lack of skill and qualification to be Chief Executive of the United States government.
beltane
@lonesomerobot: Since when did she become a representative for Obama? As far as I know, she’s just another corporate shill “Democratic” talking head.
llr
@Elizabelle:
It was not. The blog is socially conservative. There there yourself.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I’m not about to make any assumptions on the perceptiveness of the American Public to see through stupid ginned up pieces like this. Too many things that never passed the sniff test from the beginning still end up becoming ingrained conventional wisdom and political ‘fact’ because they went unchallenged and the media pounded the pulpit on it until the narrative accepted the lies full bore.
Don’t assume this is going to blow over just because it’s transparently stupid.
shortstop
@magurakurin: Mitt opened the door to this when he said his wife was his go-to girl for women’s perspectives on the economy. Rosen was responding specifically to that.
I wish she’d said something like this: “I’m glad Governor Romney is interested in hearing what women think, but I’d suggest he go out and talk to women who are struggling in this economy–whether they’re working outside the home or full-time moms–without the benefit of the fabulous Romney fortune.” (I totally disagree with you that his family’s “lifestyle” should be off limits.) But she didn’t, and thus we have to pretend this is an attack on motherhood rather than insularity.
Shari
@magurakurin:
Mitt Romney brought his wife into the discussion by saying she was his “ambassador” to women and that she “reported” back to him about women’s concerns about the economy.
I’m sick of this whole manufactured controversy. We had this discussion over 20 years ago, but like so many “women’s issues” that were settled, here it is again.
lonesomerobot
@shortstop: one would have to engaged in the media spin to fall for it. I’ve seen this story here, at TPM and Crooks and Liars… if she attacks Romney she’s acting as a surrogate whether she’s connected or not. Dems would do themselves a big service to tell Hilary Rosen to STFU and stop acting as the media go-to person just because she likes being on TV. She’s a career shill and has had a history of tone-deafness.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
every stay at home mom is above average, so i see no reason why a stay at homes mom, who has her choice of about 5 homes to stay at, can’t be the symbol that unites this once downtrodden group.
soccer moms to nascar dads, now stay at home moms, its at least a narrative, and it beats saying “folks who hate the kenyan in the white house”. its a short easy way for people to describe themselves as supporters, despite all reasonable evidence why they shouldn’t.
shortstop
@lonesomerobot: Well, Dems have uniformly been telling Rosen to STFU on this. Perhaps you should educate yourself about what’s happening before commenting further? You’re 0 for 2 now.
dan
Compare/contrast the Hilary Rosen (non) slur against stay-at-home moms with all the sh!t thrown at Michelle Obama over the years.
I don’t recall a “GOP losing its edge with women” meme popping up every time some racist a$$hat disparaged her.
This is the inverse corollary of IOKIYAR: IABFDIYAD – it’s a BFD is you’re a democrat.
/peace
28 Percent
@Zifnab: That comment is why you make the big bucks. I salute you, sir.
shortstop
@Shari:
Because running for president is just like attending a barbecue in “traditional” families. The women are in the kitchen and the men are all circling the grill, so how could Mitt ever know what women are thinking if Ann doesn’t report it to him? If only there were some other way to find out…
lonesomerobot
@beltane @shortstop: also, you’ll have to excuse my vague knowledge of the particulars, I’m a new dad with a new job in a new town so I don’t get much news right now (only what I read @ aforementioned blogs).
My point is that no Dem should want Hilary Rosen on the air speaking as a Dem.
Nutella
Good story from Iowa. One of those asshole legislators who wants to drug test everybody (except legislators, of course) proposed that people receiving child support be drug tested if the payer(!) asked for it. Here’s the good part of the story:
Now he’s going after welfare recipients. I hope they laugh at him again.
beltane
@lonesomerobot: If I recall correctly, Rosen was one of HuffPo’s many PUMA contributors during the 2008 campaign. I have no idea why anyone would want to defend this epitome of a Vichy Dem. “Tone-deafness” is putting it kindly. It wasn’t necessary to attack Ann Romney directly as her own cluelessness would doomed her ambassadorship without any assistance from the Obama campaign.
lonesomerobot
@shortstop: So you’re the official scorekeeper of the internet. Your parents must be so proud.
gocart mozart
Do you know how hard it is to raise five kids with the help of only three maids and a nanny?
Chyron HR
@lonesomerobot:
She was speaking as a political commentator on CNN’s payroll. Want to go for four out of four?
shortstop
@lonesomerobot: No, I’m not, and sorry for being short with you. You kept making assumptions without having the facts and that’s exactly how stories like this get false legs.
magurakurin
@shortstop: No, she should have said something like this “Ann Romney is certainly entitled to her opinions, but she isn’t running for president, Mitt Romney is. And because of the policies that Mitt Romney and the Republican party are perusing American families are struggling whether they be a family with a stay at home mom, a single parent, or two working parents. Democrats want to restore fairness into the system so that all families can choose the lifestyle that they think will be best for them.” There is no need to attack the Romney’s life style in the context of a brief interview on CNN. We all know they are extremely wealthy.
And the fact that this dust up has even occurred, to me is proof that, regardless of the fact that Romney brought his wife into, Democrats should leave his wife out of it altogether. If Romney wants to hide behind his wife let him. But just calmly push her aside and punch him in the face. Don’t take a swing at her.
PeakVT
@Hoodie: If Republicans have their way, even fewer families will have the luxury of having a parent (usually the mother) stay at home for any amount of time at all.
shortstop
@magurakurin: Okay, I’ll split the difference with you. I still want someone to explicitly invite Mitt to get out there and talk to lots of different women, highlighting the fact that he obviously doesn’t.
ericblair
@shortstop:
It’s not even that. I really doubt that anybody can picture Ann Romney in sweatpants and a T shirt with puke on her shoulder buying Benadryl from the Rite-Aid at 2 in the morning. She’s not the one wondering if her family can pay the bills, and whether she can afford her kids in the decent daycare or whether she’s going to need to put them in that sketchy place down the street when she needs to go back to work.
Whenever she or Angelina Jolie or some other multizillionaire starts going on about the Challenges of Motherhood you can just roll your eyes. Even if they’re deliberately taking on real parenting duties, it just takes one phonecall to bring in the nannies and take all that weight off their shoulders.
ericblair, (almost) full-service dad of twins who vaguely remembers putting orange juice on his cereal from exhaustion and being relieved when a baby threw up in his hair instead of the carpet
xian
@llr: “working his way up from the bootstraps” is comedy gold
Suffern ACE
@lonesomerobot: Not their choice. I mean do you think we want Margaret Carlson to be sitting in the liberal chair on the TV all the time? Networks make those calls, not the parties.
magurakurin
@shortstop: That seems like it could work if done right. Obviously, though, this Rosen character should be eviscerated and thrown to the wolves. She is clearly out of her depth and this is mother fucking game time now. Amateur Hour ended when Rih threw in the towel and went back to dog humping.
shortstop
@ericblair: No, I was really referring to the subset of stay-at-home moms who are using this as an excuse to be offended yet again despite having nothing in common with Ann Romney outside of motherhood. Obviously most full-time parents will take your view.
lonesomerobot
@Chyron HR: She often appears as a “Dem strategist”. Want to read my own clarifying follow up before just going on snark attack? I’m not here to contest the main point, folks. And I hardly believe my original comment is worthy of your unfortunate attempts at pithy smack downs.
lonesomerobot
@shortstop: agreed, sorry I jumped in without full knowledge here it’s just Hilary Rosen really pisses me off, I wish Dems would ask her to do some outreach in Siberia.
ericblair
@shortstop:
Well yeah, but then they’re goopers who are using any excuse to “get offended” and not actually offended. I’m also comfortable in assuming that most of the yahoos who “got offended” at this have never changed a diaper in their lives.
Anyway, what’s with the picture? Is it Her Majesty’s first goatse? That would be an occasion to commemorate with a plate or something.
Hal
It is nice to know that Ann Romney is as fake and disingenuous as her husband.
Roger Moore
@Nutella:
So, how many mothers is he paying child support to?
shortstop
@lonesomerobot: They can ask her until the cows come home, but if CNN wants to pay her and call her a Democratic strategist because it likes the attention she attracts, that’s going to happen.
liberal
@magurakurin:
Mostly agree. If we found an awesome “liberal” Romney who was since birth very, very wealthy, but had teh awesome policy proposals, why wouldn’t we support him?
I disagree about the skills/qualifications thing. Aside from being somewhat ill-spoken, he’s “qualified”. (Unlike Gingrich, who’s possibly bipolar and shouldn’t be allowed near “the Button”.) The problem is his far-right policy proposals.
liberal
@lonesomerobot:
Uh, she should have been exiled to Siberia the moment she took the RIAA job. She’s rent-collecting filth.
Amir Khalid
The Hilary Rosen/Ann Romney matter is no big deal, and should be forgotten as soon as Mitt puts his foot in his mouth again. Which he will, very soon; you can depend upon it. And didn’t Axelrod go on the CNN to remind them that Rosen pundits for CNN, and doesn’t work for the campaign?
I heard some real and more depressing news on the radio today: a number of worthy local groups — military veterans’ organizations, PTA federations, ethnic and religious societies, etc. — are organizing an anti-LGBT rally here in Kuala Lumpur next weekend, and have applied for the police permit.
liberal
@ericblair:
ISTM the ultimate example (well, if we replace “challenges” by “virtues”) is Caitlin Flanagan. As pointed out by Wikipedia, “Some of her essays underscore the emotional rewards and social value of a traditional housewife’s role, and she herself works from home, albeit with the help of a nanny and a housekeeper.[5][6] Consequently she has received criticism for misrepresenting her life choices, and then condemning other women for not choosing the more traditional lifestyle.[7] One of her critics has noted “what Flanagan does best: the fine art of the literary insult.”[8]”
shortstop
@liberal:
Because wealth is not an issue if a candidate demonstrates that he or she understands what issues face the poor and middle class, as wealthy liberal candidates do. That understanding is where the awesome policy proposals come from. When (for example) someone can pay for specialized healthcare out of her checking account but is working to limit access for everyone else, or someone else calls the jobless slackers when he hasn’t ever needed to work, that resonates with people.
We can disagree on how explicitly this disconnect needs to be pointed out or if it needs to be mentioned at all, but its existence is a major motivating factor with voters.
liberal
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, it’s depressing. But look—in many ways, the US is at the forefront of these things. And the “West” started on the liberal path centuries ago. Yet only recently has the notion that homosexuality is “normal” become common.
These things need to be fought for, hard, but there’s a need for patience, too.
g
@butler: Indeed. Ann Romney makes so little income she doesn’t even pay taxes!
Suffern ACE
@Amir Khalid: What’s the cause? someone organimg a pride parade? Asian conference of lgbt rights groups holding a meeting in KL? Or is it a “just because we’ve got nothing else to do” sort of march.
ericblair
@shortstop:
In other words, can you just add “Easy for HIM to say” to about 80% of the stuff that comes out of his mouth. That resonates.
Elizabelle
@llr:
Taking your word for it, but a link to the blog would be helpful.
Comment reads as snark as much as what we assume to be truth to our stereotype of a social conservative.
Is it possible that you’ve got a few rebels on that socially conservative blog? It happens.
flounder
I am wondering why everyone is conceding the point that Mrs. Romney is indeed a stay at home Mom. Wasn’t that what we were told about Ginnie Thomas, and it turned out she was working as a lobbyist for some teabagging outfit?
Let’s turn this this who stupid dust-up into a demand to see Romney’s tax returns. How can we say for sure that Romney was a stay at home Mom unless we see some tax returns?
Mike D.
It’s a more significant episode for Dem messaging than is commonly admitted by liberals as shown by this http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/dnc-declares-end-to-phrase-war-on-women?ref=fpblg, but obviously it’s not as significant as it’s being made out by the cable clown car. It will blow over quickly, but it will have significantly derailed the Dem War on Women talking point. Dems probably are satisfied that that achieved its purpose, but they still would prefer it not to have gone out like this, surely.
Elizabelle
@lonesomerobot:
I disagree about muzzling Hilary Rosen.
Aren’t we the “big tent” party? It’s not like she’s Joe Lieberman. (OK, maybe to her detractors.)
Kryptic had a good comment about cable/MSM beating this into the ground.
That Rosen the pundit under contract to CNN is seen as “with the Obama campaign”, when Limbaugh gets off as an “entertainer” and Hannity/O’Reilly are “opinion”
That’s rather interesting.
beltane
@Mike D.: One of the headlines on the Comcast homepage is something like “Obama stands up for Ann Romney”. I think this hurts no one but Hilary Rosen so I’m not going to worry about it.
Amir Khalid
@Suffern ACE:
No such provocation. We are decades away from seeing a pride parade or LGBT rights conference in KL. I am 51 this year, and I doubt I will see either one in my lifetime.
It’s more like a “nothing better to do” kind of march, coupled with the prejudices against certain outsider groups that you find in any conservative society. Malaysia has been growing steadily more socially conservative since the mid-1980s. You do meet out LGBT people here, and their artistic expression is not suppressed as long as it’s not overtly sexual. This is as good as it gets in a society where even straight sexual expression is largely taboo. But it worries me that a rally like this might be an early sign of unwelcome change.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike D.: If you’re correct, than politics is far stupider than even cynics have worried it is. Some random person unaffiliated with any political campaign says something about Ann Romney having a skewed view of the struggles facing women — which, by the way, was entirely a class war point and had nothing to do with “moms” — that counts as a gaffe that rubs off on all Democrats and ruins the party’s message? That’s utterly absurd. And I don’t remember this much angst when actual Ann Romney said that she doesn’t consider her family to be all that rich.
handsmile
Not content with the damage she has already caused, “Democratic strategist’ Hilary Rosen will be appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Among the guests collaborating with her to sustain this pout-rage over Ann Rmoney will be famed GOP mom Michelle Bachmann and motherf*cker Harold Ford.
So much for this particular nonsense disappearing anytime soon.
beltane
@handsmile: One wingnut and two corporate shills. Sounds like a balanced perspective to me.
4tehlulz
@handsmile: She just tweeted she isn’t, per TPM.
Michael Demmons
We all know Consuela raised the kids before she was deported.
Oh, and the youngest Romney kid is 31, I think. Time for Ann to go to work.
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
Isn’t this all a Halperin-esque “this is good news for John McCain” moment?
magurakurin
@4tehlulz: maybe she found a horse head in her bed?
Anybody know where Tom is right now?
Hoodie
@Elizabelle: I agree, and this is what is frustrating about a lot of dems, they don’t have each other’s back. I’m not wild about Rosen, but she was essentially right in this instance — Ann Romney really hasn’t “worked” in the sense of doing something difficult and sometimes unpleasant because you have to, not largely because you want to. Ann Romney chose to have five boys and she was lucky to marry into wealth so she had every possible support structure to enjoy raising them. I mean, isn’t having and raising children supposed to to, on balance, a net positive experience? How can it not be even more enjoyable when at least you don’t have to worry about the money and you know you can always afford help? Being able to stay home with them under those conditions should be that much closer to an unadulterated joy, not a burden. That’s what is so ridiculous about Mitt’s patronizing “your job is more important than mine, Ann.” Mitt’s fucking job gave Ann a big leg up.
So that part of Rosen’s remarks was not unfair. What would have been unfair would be to say, for example, Ann Romney doesn’t know about illness or disability, seeing as she has MS and is a cancer survivor. Those are things that are largely blind to money. I would respect her and her husband more if she talked about those things, rather than this bridge club nonsense.
geg6
@magurakurin:
I do believe that she was asked a question about Anne Romney being a good advisor to Mitt in regard to what women really want and care about politically. I don’t know how you answer that question without addressing Anne Romney’s bonafides in that regard.
handsmile
@4tehlulz:
Well that was fast! Thanks for the update.
It was in fact at TPM, earlier this morning, that I first read that Rosen would be appearing on MTP; an appearance confirmed at MTP’s own website.
I suspect her cancellation will be spun as confirmation of her coordination with the Kenyan S*cialist’s reelection campaign.
Mike D.
@FlipYrWhig:
Wow, how naive are you? You really thought that politics has a stupidity limbo stick below which it cannot go? It’s undefined how low it can go. Maybe politics wasn’t that stupid before yesterday, but then yesterday happened. And get ready, cuz we’re going even lower. It’s because people like Hilary Rosen are chronically unable to anticipate how their words will be construed assuming maximum conceivable stupidity and choose them accordingly that Dems always lose the messaging wars on the margins, even when they win them on the fundamentals. i don’t say all their messages are ruined. i just said the WoW talking point is significantly derailed. Hey, it might have been on the way out anyway! I’m just saying there is a documented effect here. And it’s okay: Dems still win despite this kind of thing often enough. But still. Play the game. Learn the rules. Don’t be a moran.
I can’t tell what you say is absurd – absurd that this happens, or absurd that I suggest it does. If the former, well yeah, no shit. If the latter, well, do you want to win or just wish we had better politics?
4tehlulz
@magurakurin: Austrian warmblood or Missouri fox trotter?
magurakurin
@geg6: exactly how I did above. That’s a dumb ass question she was asked; why should we give a fuck if Ann Romney is a good adviser or not? We shouldn’t. So, when you get the chance to be on tv don’t waste valuable time answering a dumb ass question. Brush it aside and attack Mitt for, oh I don’t know, agreeing with Paul Ryan that Medicare should be eliminated. Start off by saying, “I’m sure Ann Romney is a fine women who means well, but her husband wants to….” It’s fucking hardball not croquet. Control the goddamn message. Talking about Ann Romney in any context is a distraction from the real and present danger that her husband presents.
magurakurin
@Mike D.:
this.
Chyron HR
@magurakurin:
You’d be surprised how often CNN employees get “the chance to be on TV”.
rea
Well, of course, being a stay-at-home mom in the Romney situation is the equivalent of being CEO of a small company. She’s probably got a few dozen employees to supervise . . .
McJulie
@butler: No, you see, you have to understand. Staying home to raise the kids is a real job and how dare they suggest it’s not if your husband is filthy rich, but you’re a lazy-ass welfare mother who should get a job if you’re poor and/or single.
FlipYrWhig
@magurakurin: The whole reason any of this came up is because the Romney response to the “war on women” notion was a redirect. In a coordinated way, as seen with people like Nikki Haley, they rolled out the idea that women are more concerned about the economy than about contraception and health care. Mitt invoked Ann’s conversations with women as proof that this was true. Rosen’s point was that Ann has a skewed view of the economic struggles of women because she has a privileged life. She said nothing about moms. The trouble was that there’s a decades-old point of contention about what counts as “work” for women, and Rosen by using the word “work” to contrast Romney’s blue-blood cluelessness stepped on a landmine about something else _that she wasn’t even talking about_.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike D.: This is a bold leap into a very deep pit of stupidity. I hope you’re wrong and fear you’re right. But I have to say, I can’t imagine a day’s worth of news being made by, say, something disparaging Erick Erickson said about Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden.
Villago Delenda Est
@magurakurin:
Ah, but according to the Sooper Geniouses at Politico, Ann Rmoney is the “Rock Star” who will energize her android husband’s campaign and who terrifies the Obots, because she is such a “Rock Star” that guys like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, and Bono look like 40 watt bulbs in comparison!
Sorry, but the desperate Rmoney staff brought this on themselves by hauling out this woman who is as tone deaf as her shitstain of a husband. That entire family should be loaded into tumbrels, stat, for the proper treatment of such parasite filth.
McJulie
@shortstop:
Bet you anything there’s a huge overlap in those groups.I also wonder how much this flap is generational. I feel like Boomers and older still see women working outside the home as culture war stuff, while Gen X and younger see it as more purely economic.
McJulie
@FlipYrWhig:
Absolutely. I wonder if this is a more liberal version of Mr. Romney’s Freudian gaffes about firing people and so on — Rosen reached for the wording that was at the top of her mind, but it was at the top of her mind for a bad reason and she should have resisted.
Mr B
Tumblr of the day: http://textsfromdog.tumblr.com/ .
Southern Beale
The Fauxtrage will continue until Mitt Romney’s poll numbers among women improves.
zizi2
This fauxrage was the Holy Grail that the Romney campaign had been looking for all this campaign but found illusive — i.e. generate the PASSIONS of the base the way Palin did in 2008-2010.
Rosen inadvertently teed up the ingredients they had been searching for and leaped at the opportunity, namely:
1. Strokes Wingnuts’ Culture war erogenous zones while simultaneously enabling GOP to spout doublespeak
2. Doesn’t require GOP to commit to any policy goal while enabling them to jump on MORAL soapbox
3. Bumper sticker quality
4. Hijacks Democratic strong point
5. Lends itself to instant media amplification
6. It stops the bleeding of support among the ranks of Repug women who were angry at their own party. It puts the muzzle on Kay Bailey Hucthison, Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snowe, et al pronto
7. It gives Sarah Palin and her brand of aggrieved retrograde woman crusade an entry point into the election cycle.
8. They will make Ann Romney into a Palin with godmother Palin herself at her side, while deploying Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Niki Haley, Kelly Ayotte as handmaidens.
Folks, it will be a nauseating spectacle that the Poodle media will lap up and regurgitate dutifully. It will render the battle between the actual candidates as sideshows while asymmetrical coverage of Ann will be maximized.
They will pursue this aggressively precisely because they believe it will drown out a potent Michelle Obama whose acumen on the campaign trail they had been dreading all this while. Every overt and covert racial and cultural code will be employed to canonize St. Ann Warrior of Motherhood. Just watch.
And so these were likely the reason the Obama campaign did the instant rebuke. They know the insane illogic of campaigns. They experienced it in 2008 when tangential issues nearly derailed Candidate Obama’s nomination. Dems should get savvy to the game.
Bubblegum Tate
Here’s a pretty awesome wingnut justification for “shut up and stay in the house, women, don’t go thinking you should aim any higher”:
Gretchen
@ericblair:
Love that image,as a mother of twins myself.
Heliopause
It will come and go, being revived in the coming months when deemed advantageous. You don’t really expect the GOP to let go of this golden opportunity, do you?
I know that leaping to Rosen’s defense is an absolutely instinctual reflex for Juicers but, honestly, this was a major league fuckup by her. The mainstream news orgs think so, the President thinks so, the First Lady thinks so, David Axelrod thinks so, even Debbie Wasserman-Schultz thinks so. The only folks who don’t think so are denialists like you find here. Y’all might want to leave this victimization schtick to the experts over at FOX and try to find a way forward.
Nemesis
Looky here. A uterus is a uterus and thats that.
All women are essentially same. None are able to cogitate above the level of a clam.
Women repsond only to statements from other women. Other real women. Like Paylin. And Ann Romney.
Nay. The Dems have overplayed their hand on womens issues and there will be a backlash of the magnitude we saw in November of 2008, where…oh, wait…
Note to anyone paying attention…this is how surrogates (Rosen) are supposed to operate.
Nemesis
@Bubblegum Tate: This is just too amazing to ignore…
Librulism is misspelled. Apparently, working for corporate murika is a direct form of slavery.
One wonder is the poster of this muddling meandering mess of a message grasps that she/he just indicted the entire capitalist complex.
Catsy
@cmorenc: This, and;
@the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady): This.
Really all that ought need be said about this teapot tempest.
And you are as wrong about that today as you were yesterday.
This is a nothingburger and will be forgotten as the media moves on to the next shiny object. But the fact that the Romneys have fuck-you money and are utterly tone-deaf and ignorant of what it’s like for regular people isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the GOP’s ongoing war on women.
If you really think Rosen’s comments are going to make women forget what the GOP is trying to do to them or make one whit of difference on the only day where it matters, you seriously need to recalibrate your political barometer.
Catsy
BTW, this is fucking awesome:
WOLVERINES!
Patty K
It’s not only that Ann Romney didn’t have to earn money. Many very wealthy women are out there working to earn money. It’s that she probably didn’t have the wit or talent to get a decent job in the first place.
I fail to see how the Republicans can think that she’s some kind of secret weapon that other women can relate to. She never has worked a day in her life, even though at the time of her marriage she did not have five sons whom she preferred to stay at home with. She excels at…dressage. She drives “a couple of Cadillacs.” She is very good looking — which most women are not — even if in an annoying, Republican kind of way. Most women have nothing in common with her.
Jebediah
@Mr B:
That is fucking awesome!
Mike D.
@Catsy:
If I really did I seriously would, but I really don’t, and didn’t say I do, so I seriously don’t. The point I made is about the impact (documented) on Dem messaging, i.e. what professional Dem communicators say, not what voters and activists think.
Also, please note that I say the effect can be and is being over-estimated by most commentators. It’s limited but still not insignificant. And it may indeed be fully temporary. But it may not. But right now it’s real. It’s only being underestimated and desperately denied by people like you.