Remember when conservative women used to have to run for office to experience the scorn of the Left for being of the wrong political persuasion, and therefore ineligible for the defense and protection of the Party of Identity Politics?
Now, you don’t even have to be the candidate. Being married to the candidate and having committed the crime of raising your five boys instead of paying someone else to do it is enough to bring to you the tolerance and inclusion that the left reserves especially for those who reject their social hegemony, and instead choose to live according to “outdated” and “archaic notions”. They aren’t worthy of the same outrage reserved for other candidate’s wives who find themselves under scrutiny for things they have actually said.
Hilary Rosen forgets that raising children is a job, and if it weren’t, parents all over the country wouldn’t pay others to do it for them while they go to work. But then actually raising your children yourself doesn’t fit in with the left’s “equality” narrative, because to the left, equality only exists when everyone is the same. The idea that there really are gender differences keeps wymyn like Ms. Rosen awake at night.
I’ve heard the cries demanding her resignation or dismissal. I don’t want her to quit or lose her job with the DNC. I think she should go right on advising Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on how to “soften” her image. More outbursts like this and the triple-down non-apology apology are inevitable. I think that the only difference between her and other members of her party is that she doesn’t bother to conceal her contempt for women who don’t need the government’s assistance and feminism’s archetype in order to be confident, happy, and fulfilled. By all means, keep her where she is. She couldn’t be of bigger benefit to the future of the country if she were on the RNC payroll.
Of course, you’ve deliberately chosen to miss the point she was actually making. On the off chance that you actually didn’t understand what she was saying let me help you out. She inarticulately, to the extent that people like you can spin her intent, tried to convey the idea that Mitt Romney’s wife hasn’t got a clue what that average woman’s life is like and to pretend that Romney’s wife does, is ridiculous. Ann Romney, like Mitt Romney, was born and will die with a silver spoon in her mouth.
*golf clap*
Very nice. If you had taken another paragraph, it might have been time for my dramamine.
What this was about was a moment of candor, in which the speaker inadvertantly let her contempt fly. I’m not really disappointed, because I am resigned to it. The left simply can’t help itself. If a woman finds her way without the help of government, and without the wymyn’s blueprint, then she must be attacked. But yes, I did leave the “wealth” angle alone, because the more the left serenades those who can’t help but to dance every dance with Greed’s ugly and stupid little sister Envy, the more they reveal the pathetic fact that they have nothing else to run on aside from divisiveness and fear, along with the concept that if they only have a little more time, then their control over all they were never meant to control will be successful.
But please, tell the class, why is it that being wealthy means that she is fair game to be attacked, and why it is ok for the Left’s flying assmonkey brigades on Twitter to immediately launch into vile ad hominem attacks on a woman who stayed home to raise her 5 sons instead of donning a pants suit and trying to be a bigger ball buster than the guys in the office. What about her financial position makes her a legitimate target for ANY of this?
I will take it a step further. It used to be, “staying home” to raise a family, was the privileged position. Not to be subordinate to a man, but to be a partner. For example, mom was “in charge” of the house, even dad deferred to her wishes and desires, when it came to how things were run/managed in the house. And the old line about a woman being “a manager”, a nurse, a cook, a seamstress, a teacher, and a host of other skill sets, was true. To run the household successfully, she had to have all those, and more. To argue that Ann Romney had a different scenario due exclusively is patently wrong. Her money made the logistics easier, it had little to do with the rest.
The good lord has blessed me with Barnum Bailey. So often I visit here and end up being the first to dissent on one of your way-off posts while the rest of your acolytes fall in line.
As I said in the comments section of my own blog, clearly Hillary stepped in it to the extent that she provided you and yours with a sound bite you could run with. But as Barnum correctly notes, this was not an indictment of stay-at-home moms. This was a comment that Ann Romney has ZERO first hand experience with the trials of the middle class working woman or poor woman. Can she empathize with them? Sure. That is where Hillary screwed up … in not acknowledging that Ann might be perceptive.
But it goes deeper than that. When Mitt constantly defers these questions to his wife, he gives the distinct impression that he cannot empathize with women or answer questions that concern women. “Women are my wife’s department” is essentially what he is saying. With women roundly rejecting him as a presidential choice, Romney better start learning how to relate to this segment of the electorate.
But then “relating” is not one of Mitt’s strong points.
So David Axlerod “misunderstood” her remarks as he tossed her under the bus? I guess he’s just as stupid as all those stay-at-home moms who were just tickled to death by Ms. Rosen’s remark? Wait…let me guess….David was confused, and the moms were too stupid too correctly interpret her remark, just like those people who stubbornly “vote against their interests”, in the learned opinion of their left-leaning betters, right?
And what about that special “new tone” love for Ann?
Let me help you on this one. When conservatives make dumbass comments like Allen West’s 81 congressional communists, not a single conservative leader says “that’s foolishness”. When Hillary Rosen puts her foot in her mouth, libs step away. That’s the difference between conservatives and liberals … courage.
When conservatives make dumbass comments like Allen West’s 81 congressional communists, not a single conservative leader says “that’s foolishness”.
“Foolishness” is hyperbolic for something that is likely just incorrect.
I thought the progressive caucus in the House had more than 81 members.
When Hillary Rosen puts her foot in her mouth, libs step away.
So courage is distancing yourself from someone who has been “misunderstood” by evil wingerz!!! ? I guess that’s what Bill Ayers and the Wrong Reverend Wright can tell themselves at BBQs while their friend and protege is knocking a ball around on the back nine.
As is often the case, this lies in a grey area. Rosen’s comments, without further explanation, were not misunderstood by the “evil wingerz”. The comments were offensive. However there is a truth behind the comments, namely that Ann Romney’s life experience is entirely different from the working class and the poor.
It DOES take courage to say that someone in “your camp” screwed up. If it didn’t take courage, more folks would do it.
Well, “stepping away” from someone, and telling John King that she isn’t one of the DNC’s, but instead a CNN employee isn’t exactly owning her or her mistake, nor is it especially “courageous”.
But we don’t need to worry about Hils. I’m sure she was happy to take one for the team. She got to continue in the proud tradition of feminists crapping all over conservative women who didn’t make the approved choices, and even if she was “fired”, we know there is a Soros funded group waiting to give her a job.
Remember Porretto’s Carbohydrate Axiom: “Keep thine eye fixed upon the doughnut, lest thou pass all unwitting through the hole.”
This is an element in the Democrats’divide to conquer strategy. Moreover, the women’s vote is the largest imaginable prize in this contest; whoever manages to dominate it is the likely winner of the Oval Office.
It’s not enough just to denounce and deride Hilary Rosen. We need every available resource focused on this one. In particular, a massive investigative effort should go into determining whether Rosen received any sort of direction from the Democrat Party or from the Obama campaign. Attaching Rosen’s smear to its ultimate designer could win the Right an enduring political advantage among American women.
Could you document this please?
Let’s not get carried away. It’s not like anyone is saying Ann hates black people and is a KKK follower (flip the script back to Michelle and her “hatred” for white people and her Angela Davis stereotype).
This is a mountain out of a molehill. Hillary stated Ann Romney has had a privileged life that makes it a bit less convincing when she speaks for working class women. If you can prove Ann had a hardscrabble upbringing, be my guest. Prove Hillary wrong on the facts. Otherwise, take a Valium and relax.
By the way, please cite all the instances during the 2008 campaign when Obama deferred questions to his wife. Mitt put his wife in the cross-hairs by not being able to speak to women’s issues himself. He is the candidate, not Ann.
Apologies to Francis … previous comment was intended for FX Phillips. Don’t know why it wound up in the wrong place.
First R
The quote that I used of Missus Obama was a direct quote she made during the campaign in 2008. Then there was also the campaign speech were she was asserting that Obama will be there to change our way of life, change our history et. al. These are well known incidents of her campaigning directly for her husband. Quite frankly since she appears to be quite the ideologue her speaking on behalf of the campaign was curtailed, as that would have given the game, up shortly after that
As to your demand that I find every instance of Obama deferring policy issues to her that is a rather tall order not to mention a non-sequitir as being a direct mouthpiece is clearly enough to draw fire and since you are not gonna pay me for the research I will stick with the two instances above. What I do know she has her pet projects(nutrition) that appear to have 100 % backing of the smallest man ever to occupy the office not to mention her electioneering by sending e-mails under her name to me as an Obama surrogate.
As to your second objection maybe “muck” was too strong but she was certainly mocked by those on the left for this interview. While not especially vicious the snark and condescension was evident. But this was only one instance. I chose wonkette because she tends to be on of the nastier commenters. Can you see Comedy Central producing a piece of snark like this about Michelle Atoinette and her serial vacations or her imperious pomposity as she tries to supplant parents as the primary source of nutrition for their children.
Put in the search Anne Romney I don’t feel rich March 6, 2012 and see how much play this event got for a husband supporting, anodyne interview. The only thing that got noticed was this out of context quote which was to portray her as an out of touch matriarch. This is essentially the same meme as used by the political hack Rosen.
And as for criticizing Mrs Romney perhaps you missed my opening gambit.
Anyone who advocates or is cited as a source is fair game. I don’t play favorites when it come to stuff like this and I think hiding behind sympathetic figures to try and shield the actual purveyor of the policy from criticism is obscene. It is the political equivalent to terrorists hiding behind human shields.
I criticize Rosen on the substance of her comments not because I think Anne Romney is somehow immune just because she is the wife of a candidate. If she shuts up about policy and goes home and gives anodyne suzy homemaker interviews she is at that point not a political player and ought be off limits. If she goes out and involves herself in policy issues and electioneering( as Michelle Obama most certainly does) she is subject to being discredited like any other surrogate.
The difference is the same double standard that pervades the political divide where those in the NDSWP are not held to any standard of veracity or integrity and are allowed to use any tactic as long as it advances the consensus narrative.
If Mrs Romney interjects herself into the campaign or if Willard cites her as a source or is used as some other political prop then she is fair game to be discredited just like any other spokesman. This includes Michelle and her angry black women in training.
The “human shield” tactic of politics perfected by the left and used incessantly to try and shield abominable policies is an obscenity. However in a way I am indulging in a little schendenfreude as to the NDSWP’s consternation as it is used against them.
That being said I don’t condemn the intellectual whore Rosen(intellectual whore because her position was exactly the opposite when it came to Michelle) for trying to discredit her opponent but by doing in such a tone deafly ignorant, condescending and transparently politically opportunistic way.
The left again show it’s “pro-choice” bona fides as they actively disparage and calumniate choices which don’t align with the shibboleths of their religion of the “Church of State”. They are all for choice along as it is the state approved choice.This is the hallmark of the elitist totalitarians as that falsely represent themselves to be the champions of choice all the while making sure you only have the choice they want you to make or the wrath of the state.
Understand the tactical position that team Obama is making with this selective support. They see the linebacker-ish(in both size and disposition)first lady as an asset and potential spokemsan for the campaign and wish to place her above criticism and put whatever she says beyond debate. This can not be allowed although I can see the Romney campaign falling for this misdirection. Mrs Romney will never be accorded such deference regardless of the sympathetic figure she cuts and the venom will be allowed to take affect long before any denunciations take place.
Michelle Antoinette gets fawning coverage every where she goes and this is not the first time Ann Romney has been attacked in the main stream press. After all Mrs Obama is allowed to get away with hateful tripe like “this is the first time I have ever been proud of my country” when her malignantly destructive marxist husband was garnering the NDSWP, nomination not to mention her imperious and pompous attitude which she brings to any issue she touches(nutrition) but Mrs Romney is dragged through the muck a the platitudinous interview that she gave during the primaries and is demeaned by a shallow political hack because she didn’t make the choices that the totalitarian gender war feminists deem as imbuing you with credibility.
Funny I thought that in the leftist world all choices are equally valid? Another leftist first principle shot to hell on the rocks of political expediency.
OK, FX, perhaps this reply to your comment will wind up under your subthread instead of Francis’s.
While I understand your unwillingness to do more research (time is money, after all), your citation of Michelle Obama’s comments do NOT fit the bill because Barack did not defer to her. She made these comments of her own volition. And I do agree that in doing so, she makes herself a target for the opposition. (The “first time I’ve been proud” comment has been way overplayed but I’ll leave that for another day.)
While I agree that the observation has nothing to do with Rosen’s comment, it is still a fact that Mitt seems to have made Ann Ambassador to the Island of Vagina. His deference to her as being in touch with the thoughts of women, only reenforces that he is OUT of touch with the thoughts of women. Not a wise campaign strategy if you ask me.
Oh, by the way, thanks for the link on the snark directed at Ann Romney.
I haven’t seen much of Ann Romney. From what little I’ve seen, she seems a kind decent sort. Her comment that true riches are not financial is commendable and I take her at her word that she feels this way.
Ann (and Mitt’s) problem right now is the tightrope of talking about wealth during the worst financial time in our country’s history since the 1930′s. It is so easy for anything they say to be twisted or misinterpreted. Mitt saying “I’m unemployed” is amusing to me but enraging to those who really are unemployed with no stock dividend account to lean on.
Surely you can see how careful they need to be about what they say.
P.S. Before you go there …. the same could have been said of Michelle. “The first time I’ve been proud …” comment, to my mind, simply meant that she never dreamed she’d see the country be so color blind (nor did I) and how proud this made her. Those three words “the first time” got her in big trouble. In politics, you have to be careful what you say and HOW you say it.
Gee, I’m not the only one who recognizes that this was yet one more play from a very worn playbook:
This was no accidental rhetorical drive-by. “Progressives” from Gloria Steinem to Patricia Ireland to Naomi Wolf have derided their conservative counterparts as female impersonators, fake women and men with breasts from time immemorial. It’s SOP: standard operating procedure. In 1992, Hillary Clinton mocked women who stayed at home and “baked cookies and had teas.” In 2004, blueblood Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, sniffed that first lady Laura Bush (a former teacher and librarian before becoming a homemaker) never “had a real job — I mean, since she’s been grown up.”
That’s the problem with messing with elephants. The memory is much longer than you think. And if you think that the braying about “understanding the plight of real women” wins the Dems votes when they make jackass moves like this, I think you should stick with what you’re doing.
where I said that I thought it was wrong for Mitt Romney to be using his wife as his guide to women’s economic struggles when she “had never worked a day in her life.”
Because only women who work outside the home can know anything about economic struggles.
You see, women who stay at home don’t have to worry their pretty, little heads about hard stuff like money and should just worry about baking cookies and keeping the milk cold.
Veeshir, it isn’t an issue of stay-at-home mom. It’s an issue of super-rich stay-at-home mom. Rich people don’t worry about money. They are bathing in it. Ann Romney cannot lay claim to the trials and tribulations of the working class woman. She can talk with them and relay their concerns and empathize with them. But her own personal concerns are entirely different.
You realize that Michelle Obama can’t exactly carve out that space either, right? $362K for the woman of the house, and him making $162K a year at the same time before he was the Fresh Prez of Bill Ayers. I don’t think that deciding to go with the Angus beef instead of the Kobe and romaine instead of arugula is really one of those decisions that makes them terribly empathetic with the “little people”.
“She can talk with them and relay their concerns and empathize with them.”
Isn’t that all that was claimed?
[...] Stupidity and Death: You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby! Remember when conservative women used to have to run for office to experience the scorn of the Left [...]
Rutherford please revisit your Clintonian history.
If you’re referring to “sitting at home baking cookies”, yes I remember it well.
That’s not what I was referring too. I was referring to how previous Presidents and candidates have deferred to the spouse in efforts to shape overall public image.
Teresa did a little research on this. Ann Romney lives a life of privilege now because Mitt worked hard for *years*, while she held the fort.
http://teresainfortworth.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/on-casting-stones-how-the-war-on-women-convinced-me-to-vote-for-mitt-romney/
I’m betting the $62 a month apartment didn’t come with a maid.
BiW, one thing upon which we probably agree is that there was one very nasty byproduct of the women’s movement. In demanding job and pay equality, many feminists made the choice of stay-at-home mom (or housewife as we used to say) a sell out choice and they shamed women who didn’t want to enter the rat race. The fact is if a woman truly has the choice, either choice is valid and is none of anyone else’s business.
The problem and reality today is that economically, many women do NOT have the choice. Families can only survive on two incomes.
That’s because the cost of a bloated, progessive entitlement state made two incomes a necessity for a lot of families. But I’m sure compelling them to buy a government approved product will make that better.
[...] Stupidity and Death: You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby! Remember when conservative women used to have to run for office to experience the scorn of the Left [...]
First R
The quote that I used of Missus Obama was a direct quote she made during the campaign in 2008. Then there was also the campaign speech were she was asserting that Obama will be there to change our way of life, change our history et. al. These are well known incidents of her campaigning directly for her husband. Quite frankly since she appears to be quite the ideologue her speaking on behalf of the campaign was curtailed, as that would have given the game, up shortly after that
As to your demand that I find every instance of Obama deferring policy issues to her that is a rather tall order not to mention a non-sequitir as being a direct mouthpiece is clearly enough to draw fire. She has her pet projects(nutrition) that appear to have 100 % backing of the smallest man ever to occupy the office not to mention her electioneering by sending e-mails under her name to me as an Obama surrogate.
As to your second objection maybe “muck” was too strong but she was certainly mocked by those on the left for this interview.
To be continued…
…continued
While not especially vicious the snark and condescension was evident. But this was only one instance. I chose wonkette because she tends to be on of the nastier commenters. Can you see Comedy Central producing a piece of snark like this about Michelle Antoinette and her serial vacations or her imperious pomposity as she tries to supplant parents as the primary source of nutrition for their children.
Put in the search Anne Romney “I don’t feel rich March 6, 2012″ and see how much play this event got for a husband supporting, anodyne interview. The only thing that got noticed was this out of context quote which was to portray her as an out of touch matriarch. This is essentially the same meme as used by the political hack Rosen.
And as for criticizing Mrs Romney perhaps you missed my opening gambit.
Anyone who advocates or is cited as a source is fair game. I don’t play favorites when it come to stuff like this and I think hiding behind sympathetic figures to try and shield the actual purveyor of the policy from criticism is obscene(it was probably more a function of Romney’s club foot campaigning than an actual instance). It is the political equivalent to terrorists hiding behind human shields.
I criticize Rosen on the substance of her comments not because I think Anne Romney is somehow immune just because she is the wife of a candidate or has special circumstances. If she shuts up about policy and goes home and gives anodyne Suzy homemaker interviews she is at that point not a political player and ought be off limits. If she goes out and involves herself in policy issues and electioneering( as Michelle Obama most certainly does) she is subject to being discredited like any other surrogate.
The difference is the same double standard that pervades the political divide where those in the NDSWP are not held to any standard of veracity or integrity and are allowed to use any tactic as long as it advances the consensus narrative.
That is not an argument that is not being made by anyone. But from what I understand it typical of your mode of debate.
That is not what Rosen said. She said Mrs Romney never worked a day in her life as if raising children is not difficult or somehow not even “work” or that her health problem didn’t make it that much tougher. Her poisonous condescension dismisses all those situations that don’t conform to her particular idea of credibility. In other words she is just indulging in typical political douche baggery; a behavior that normally doesn’t get you in trouble unless it is your boss’s aim to put his own queen out on the campaign trail and keep her from being criticized and challenged.
And this doesn’t even get into the outright dishonesty she engaged in that the NDWSP isn’t advancing the wholly fabricated in the White House “war on women” meme.
Many in the regime have “apologized” and “distanced’ themselves from Ms Rosen in what can only be seen as a choreographed subterfuge. As with everything else they do in this regime their sympathy is both cynical and politically motivated.
I don’t know. Maybe all us Francis’ look alike.
Sorry for the delay in response. Because I had multiple of links in my original comment it got hung up in moderation.
Black is White please delete the comment from me in moderation it is the same as these two comments.
FX, that was “all net.”
Well put.
Here is the link tho the “interview” referred to when Mrs Romney was roundly mocked
Rutherford is like many libs, especially those who graduated Ivy. Feminists like Hips Rosen make up a large part of the Dimocratic party and hold homemakers in contempt, the same way they hold pro-life women in contempt.
Rutherford is simply marching to the feminist beat because he’s a weak man. Ignore his ignorance – Rutherford characterizes the type of ignorant audience that scam artists like Obama play to – and the only way that dismal failure can possibly win an election anymore – his gross incompetence assuring that.
Listen, I was a son once. Multiply me by five and I’ll guarantee you maid or no maid, privilege or no privilege, raising five sons would be one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Hips Rosen simply blurted out the unvarnished opinion of liberalism concerning motherhood. If Liberals are anything, it’s anti-family. And it shows….