Politico's Roger Simon on Friday criticized the White House's handling of the Hilary Rosen-Ann Romney dustup whilst also taking a poke at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Simon said, "The degree to which the Obama campaign was fearful of Hilary Rosen's comments: they really tied her to the top of the family car" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell has been a key player in pushing the network's "war on women" meme, such as when she viciously tag-teamed with liberal senators to attack Susan G. Komen founder Nancy Brinker to her misleading, biased coverage of the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas.
So it's no surprise that Mitchell joined forces with liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus at the top of her program today to spin for Democratic activist and PR flak Hilary Rosen, who stepped in it earlier this week with her ill-advised attack on Ann Romney.
On Friday's CBS This Morning, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman did his best to brush aside the controversy over liberal diehard Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney, claiming that the issue was "our latest example of false indignation." Friedman also defended the class warfare argument of the frequent visitor of the Obama White House: "I think everyone knows the point Hilary Rosen was trying to make."
The left-leaning columnist also claimed that the defense of Mrs. Romney was a cynical ploy for the votes of women: "When you have a close race like this, that is so close, you need every vote, particularly if you're in Romney's case – nineteen points behind on women – you're going to seize on anything...this was a chance to jump on it- you know, use it as a wedge issue, get some more votes." [audio clips available here; video below the jump]
Though everyone is talking about Democratic strategist and Obama confidant Hilary Rosen's insolent remarks about Ann Romney, I want to discuss them, too, because they reveal her leftist mindset.
Rosen didn't misspeak; she spoke deliberately and with passion. And when given a chance to retract or soften her remarks, she doubled down — at least initially.
Friday's New York Times portrayed Obama supporter Hilary Rosen's gaffe on CNN Wednesday night, when she accused Mitt Romney's wife Ann of having "never worked a day in her life," as less of a Democratic fumble and more of a pox-on-both-their-houses moment for both presidential campaigns.
The story came at an awkward moment for the paper, which prominently played up Mitt Romney's alleged woes with women voters on Thursday's front page: "Romney Taking Steps to Narrow His Gender Gap." And the paper has constantly insisted that the issues of birth control access and abortion will kill the GOP in 2012.
After CNN contributor John Fugelsang agreed with the "substance" of Hilary Rosen's remarks on Ann Romney, conservative columnist Will Cain laid into him for "Balkanizing" the country into classes and sects. The exchange happened during the 7 a.m. hour of Starting Point.
Rosen, a Democratic activist, had sparked an outcry for saying Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, but CNN host Soledad O'Brien stepped in and claimed people were missing the "whole point of what she was saying." Fugelsang, a liberal comedian and CNN regular, agreed.
NBC and CBS's evening and morning shows on Thursday and Friday finally discovered the ugly comments made by a Democratic operative against Ann Romney. After skipping the story Thursday morning, CBS Evening News reporters did their best to minimize it. Correspondent Nancy Cordes insisted that Hillary Rosen, who knocked Mrs. Romney for "never working," made sure to stress that the woman "is not connected to the Obama campaign, but Republicans called out the campaign anyway."
Anchor Scott Pelley offered a similarly dismissive attitude: "Democrats and Republicans tripped over one another to see who could denounce with the most force what most everyone agrees was a dumb comment from a single pundit." Cordes pointed out an 18 point lead Barack Obama enjoys among women over Romney in one poll. On Friday's Good Morning America, reporter John Berman stressed this theme: "...Mitt Romney trails the President by 19 points among women. 19 points."
When I saw the headline at last night dispatch from the Associated Press's Charles Babington on presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his campaign ("Romney rebuts claims that he, GOP are anti-women") I thought that the Obama administration and Babington's employer, also known as the Administration's Press, might finally be throwing the inane "war on women" meme into the dustbin. After the Hilary Rosen disaster of the past 36 hours, that would seem wise.
The headline's reference to rebuttal leads one to believe that Romney had successfully "refute(d) by evidence or argument" the utter garbage the left's "war on women" accusation against Republicans and conservatives has always been. I should have known better. The headline doesn't reflect the underlying article at all, leading one to hope that most readers stop right there. Babington's report is so disgracefully over-the-top it deserves its own wing in the Journalism Hall of Shame (bolds and numbered tags, which cover only a portion of the journalistic offenses committed in Babington's full write-up, are mine):
Rally round the Rosen! On his MSNBC show this morning Chuck Todd used variations on the phrase "manufactured controversy" no fewer than eight times in dismissing the controversy around Rosen's "Ann Romney never worked a day in her life" remarks.
By the end of a subsequent segment, Todd had former Obama and Clinton adviser [and Dee Dee sister] Betsy Myers taking up the "manufactured" meme. View the video after the jump.
Back up the bus! After bouncing Hilary Rosen beneath the Greyhound, President Obama and friends might have to throw it in reverse again over the person of key Dem coalition member Terry O'Neill. The NOW president suggested to Ed Schultz tonight that Ann Romney, along with Mitt, lacks "life experience" and "imagination" needed to understand most Americans.
For good measure, in the very same segment Dem congresswoman Maxine Waters called the Republican candidate for president Mitt "Rot-ney." Classy bunch! View the video after the jump.
In the wake of the Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen stay-at-home mom dustup, Salon's Joan Walsh on Thursday predictably made the totally false claim "being able to stay home with your children [is] a choice for the wealthy only."
Fortunately, former RNC chairman Michael Steele was also on MSNBC's Hardball to set the record straight saying, "This isn’t about just rich women. There are a lot of middle class women out there who stay at home with their kids too" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
After saying Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, Democratic activist Hilary Rosen was trying to spin her way out of the firestorm over her comments. CNN's Wolf Blitzer would have none of it on Thursday's The Situation Room as he reprimanded her, forced her to apologize, and asked her how it felt to be thrown "under the bus" by Democratic allies.
Blitzer grilled Rosen for upwards of ten minutes and ripped her "awful way of saying" what she intended to say about Romney. He then made her "look into the camera" and talk to Romney, and after she dodged an apology a deadly serious Blitzer called her out on it. [Video below the break. Audio here.]
