Hilary Rosen Says Something Stupid, Even Worse She Misses The Point
Let’s begin with what Rosen said:
During an appearance on CNN Wednesday night, Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen questioned whether Ann Romney was qualified to be talking about women’s economic issues since she’s “never worked a day in her life.”
Like I said… stupid. Rosen then doubles down:
Spare me the faux anger from the right who view the issue of women’s rights and advancement as a way to score political points. When it comes to supporting policies that would actually help women, their silence has been deafening. I don’t need lectures from the RNC on supporting women and fighting to increase opportunities for women; I’ve been doing it my whole career. If they want to attack me and distract the public’s attention away from their nominee’s woeful record, it just demonstrates how much they just don’t get it.
[…]
Now let’s be clear on one thing. I have no judgements about women who work outside the home vs. women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full-time. I even envy them sometimes. It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is NOT a choice that most women have in America today.
You can go read the whole thing. Rosen obviously feels justified, even righteous, saying what she said. Miss the point much, Ms. Rosen?
Let me sum this up for everyone… The reason Ann Romney isn’t “qualified to be talking about women’s economic issues” isn’t because she’s “never worked a day in her life,” it’s because she’s rich. That’s why her claiming to understand balancing a household budget rings false. That’s why no one can picture her comparing prices at the grocery store. It has nothing to do with her being a stay at home mom.
And that’s the point, which Rosen stunningly misses. It’s the money. It’s why everyone groaned when Mitt Romney told a group that he was unemployed, too. Rosen’s statement lumped Ann Romney in with all stay at home moms. Given that perhaps she should now compare Mitt to all the unemployed.
Congratulations, Ms. Rosen, for reigniting the Mommy Wars. And yes, you were being judgmental and obviously have some unresolved issues. Extra kudos for tossing red meat to the GOP.
Tags: Ann Romney, Hillary Rosen, Mitt Romney, War on Women
Im not sure if im agreeing with you, pan, or with Rosen, but here’s how i feel on the subject
(voluntary) Stay at home moms have the same luxury (yes, i said luxury, but keep reading) as (voluntary) stay at home dads…. a spouse who makes enough money to support the entire family.
As a former difficult ass-hole kid, Im sure raising kids isnt easy…. but ya know what’s harder? Raising kids while holding down a full time job. If money is not an concern for your family…. NOT money for car elevators… but money for food and heat… everything else is a lot less stressful. Anne Romney has no idea what it is like to do the hard work of raising children while also earning money needed to feed them. That is what disqualifies her from talking about the issue since a smaller and smaller percentage of women (or men) are stay at home parents because they can afford to be.
Hilary Rosen spent a good chunk of her career lobbying for the RIAA and is responsible for much over the top anti-consumer legislation. She needs to go away and never become an actual Democratic insider.
agreed with Ben. Being a mom is a difficult, full time job (my mom stayed home until we were 12)but there is NO SUCH THING as work/home-life balance for women in the country who work outside the home. For lots of them it’s a myth. Those women have two full time jobs.
also agreed with Pan. Since Anne’s car-elevator rich I’m sure there were plenty of Nannies and baby-sitters for those five boys (ie. less work), so her experience as an American woman is marketly different from the norm. THAT’S the real issue.
Also i think it’s sort of insulting that Mitt’s got to always refer to Anne when talking about women’s issues. Like as a man he just doesn’t give a shit or have an opinion because it isn’t important to him.
The GOP was in dire need of red meat after the bruising Romney took on the Lilly leadbeter act.
Its just never a good idea to attack a woman and her children. Leave Ann out of this and focus on Mitt.
agreed occam, but that’s hard to do if every time a women’s issue comes up Mitt’s like “well let me go talk to Ann” or “i wish Ann was here”
Not all moms who CHOOSE to stay home have the “Luxury” to do it.
Many sacrifice a lot. They CHOOSE not to have a car and they CHOOSE not to have new clothes for themselves and they CHOOSE to sacrifice all luxury so that their children can be raised by a parent instead of a stranger. IT IS NOT A LUXERY and that is an insult to stay at home moms everywhere. Their was and is nothing luxurious in it for me! Working and dropping my kids off for someone else to raise…maybe that is the luxury.
Not all stay at home moms are rich. I was not planning to vote this year. But is this keeps up I am voting for Mitt.
The difference between Hilary Rosen and Allen Stevens yesterday?
Allen Stevens knows when to shut up.
“Working and dropping my kids off for someone else to raise…maybe that is the luxury.”
Yeah, right. Because everybody loves their job better than their family.
Donna’s right about one thing, though — an Obama victory depends mainly on left-wingers like Ms. Rosen learning to STFU.
Donna, while you made great personal sacrifice to stay home with your kids (which is admirable) Women like Mrs Romney (or possibly men like Mr Palin) have not had to do that. She was able to stay at home while living like a rich person.
You mentioned not having a car…. well, Anne Romney has “a couple of Cadillacs” I, of course don’t know your personal situation, but your family.. I assume… can still survive on one income.. that alone puts you in a not-normal position. Forget luxury and TVs and all that… most American families today REQUIRE 2 incomes just to get by. This was a really unfortunate gaffe by ms Rosen… and since it’s our dear MSM it will be reported forever as a quote by Obama himself. oh well.
what’s disgusting is i can almost see the right wing strategy forming where they try to paint Michelle Obama as a horrible mother for choosing to have a career when her family would have been just fine with Barack’s income. how long do ya think it’ll take for them to roll that one out?
I actually had a working woman tell me that she was glad when her vacation was over because her kids wore her out. She felt having someone else raise them was a luxury. I hear working woman lament all the time about how summer vacation is too long. I am just saying.
Many years in our marriage we made under 18K But I still stayed home. I would go and clean the neighbors houses for pocket change. That is the typical stay at home mom. I really don’t care that Ann is rich. The point is this other woman has insulted us stay at home moms. I guess I should take off my shoes and get back in the kitchen because being a stay at home mom make me stupid.
Clearly Mitt respects his wife even though she is so stupid she cannot get a job.
I dont see it that way. Rosen is a paid bomb thrower. Her job is to insult.
First of all, attacking a candidate’s spouse is low-rent. Its lame when the right wing does it, and it’s lame when the left wing does it….(especially when the left wing does it since one of our goals is that you should be able to love whomever you want free of judgment). But I don’t see how pointing out that a person has never wanted for anything is calling all stay at home moms “stupid”. (btw YOU used that word. no one else has yet) Hopefully, all those decisions are made out of a desire to give one’s children the best possible chance. The decisions you made required great sacrifice…. the decisions other parents who decide both of them must earn an income require great sacrifice. People who haven’t needed to sacrifice to feed a family don’t have the proper background in forming policy that will effect people who have had to or will have to.
Donna you’ve done a lot (more than some others would do) for the sake of what you felt was best for your children. You should be proud of that.
That being said, I think it’s fair to say that Obama is as equally respectful of his own wife as Mitt is. So these insensitive comments really shouldn’t have anything to do with how you vote one way or the other. that’s like me voting against Mitt because I was angry at Bill O’Reilly for something he said.
What everyone is missing is this. On the campaign trail, Ann Romney has been meeting with various Womens groups around the country, and she just simply relayed to Mitt that they expressed concerns over the economy. Don’t shoot the messenger.
“she just simply relayed to Mitt that they expressed concerns over the economy. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
You didn’t by any chance just buy a bridge in Brooklyn from somebody, did you? You really think she had to talk to anyone to form that utterly banal bit of wisdom?
Mitt cant be bothered to go to the steno pool himself huh rusty?
The problem with stereotyping people, my experience:
Okay I married my husband when we did not have much and we have battled infertility for the length of our 8+ years of marriage, male factor initially but now it could just as well be me as I am 40 at this time. During 9 years of our time together (two year engagement too) I held a job/career, however my petroleum engineer husband (hold your judgmental horses – I married him when he could barely find a job, when petroleum engineers were not highly valued participants in our society) had started a small company about a week after we said our vows and so he has become rather successful of late. To save our marriage, because I was being attacked from multiple directions by the equalizers, I quit my job two years ago because I was simply working incredible hours at a hospital as the only research coordinator in cancer and to address what I did not know at the time, surreal issues coming down the pike in my life. Since I’ve been off I’ve been hit with 4 foot surgeries (a complication from bunion surgery), the bank who was literally trying to steal our second home, we recently bought to help clear clutter so that we can possibly adopt, because of their mistake (we could pay off the home in its entirety but they won’t clean my husband’s credit – long story, about 35 pages worth incriminating the bank of malice, fraud, deception, criminal negligence), buying furniture and stocking the second home our bank was/is trying to steal, entertaining mainly his friends and family, my grandmother’s death, his father’s death, my mother’s self-induced hardship, learning to gourmet cook, working on studying for an MBA, clearing out the endless clutter that accumulated over the course of our marriage at our primary house, another ivf currently to add to the two I went through when I was working and the five IUIs, and many other burdens that hit at once, basically supporting my husband so that we don’t go under – and I bet there are those women who will say I did not work these last two years bc my husband and I happen to be sort of successful currently, coming from the right because I don’t have children and coming from the left because I’ve been ‘off’ for two years. I feel I partly saved my husband, which is part of my vows, and he has done the same for me.
I’m sure it is not easy raising five children and dealing with the idiosyncrasies of a very intelligent multi-millionaire. What everyone has to realize is that no one’s road is paved with gold and even though life is incredibly not fair, rarely one lives a life of privilege in all areas. People have their battles and I’m sure Ann’s life has been tough in ways we could never contemplate. Just everyone has a different drama, and this is coming from a woman who has struggled with infertility for eight years, understanding that Ann Romney, who was blessed with much more wealth and five children, might not have the easy/happy/kishi road everyone envisions.
I love how the implication that the privilege of staying home and raising children because of obscene wealth is somehow exclusive to the Romneys. As if every shithead in congress doesn’t have that same luxury.
Here’s a news flash: if you’re a ‘just’ a millionaire, as opposed to a billionaire, you aren’t going to be able to ‘relate’ to middle class citizens. And who effing cares whether or not a leader can relate to me??? All I want is a leader who will make good decisions.
JFC, people. Grow up. We’re not electing a friend, a drinking buddy or a short stop for our over-40 softball team. We’re electing a PRESIDENT.
Do you think Mitt “i was for everything i was against before i was against everything im for” Romney can make good decisions?
“What everyone has to realize is that no one’s road is paved with gold and even though life is incredibly not fair … I’m sure Ann’s life has been tough in ways we could never contemplate.”
Which has nothing to do with the issue.
“I love how the implication that the privilege of staying home and raising children because of obscene wealth is somehow exclusive to the Romneys. As if every shithead in congress doesn’t have that same luxury.”
Whereas I love how you lost sight of the actual issue, which is whether stay-at-home wife-and-motherhood makes Ann Romney qualified to expound on economic issues. It doesn’t. The only reason she’s being dragged into the fray is BECAUSE HER HUSBAND PUT HER THERE, as he’s too much of a coward to take any heat at all, on this issue or any other. I expect this campaign will reveal Romney as a guy with no more control of his temper than John McCain, minus McCain’s genuine likability.
And with all due respect, which is virtually none, you are the last person to lecture anyone about what he or she should look for in a president. In the Delaware blogosphere, the lasting story of the 2008 Democratic primary fight was your unhinged response to anyone who dared to question the presumptive nominee. If that decision was based on reason, it sure didn’t show in your histrionic commentary.
Ann seems to be the only thing Mitt hasn’t flip-flopped on.
that we know of….. Allen West told me that Mitt has had affairs with between 79 and 81 communists.
Funny that Rosen would go that route, considering the high 6 figure income she earned while she was at RIAA coupled with the $300K her then-partner, Elizabeth Birch, earned at the Human Rights Campaign. The couple earned well over $1 million a year.
Reply to Comment from Geezer: Jeez I don’t even know who you are. You quoted my comment in your above diatribe against me about something I may or may not have said in the 2008 Democratic primary fight. Please quote my statement bc I cannot find it anywhere on the web and don’t remember making it as that was so long ago, and I usually don’t blog. Please post my comment.
Also you assume as most close-minded people on the extreme Left (or Right but not in this case) normally do that your opinion of what Rosen said is the only viable interpretation on Earth, and anyone who doesn’t agree should be burned at the stake. The issue with Rosen’s statement is that it was blatantly insensitive to stay at home mothers and to those who have made enough so that they do have the privilege of staying at home if they so choose. I don’t understand why the Dems think that everyone is supposed to be on the same economic level and we are all supposed to go to our equally paid jobs for life, that no one is supposed to progress except those in givernment. If you don’t respect me, I don’t care…because I don’t know you from Adam and I don’t know if I respect you because again, I don’t know you. Please publish my histrionic and refresh my memory for such a long ago event, because for the life of me I do not know what you are talking about. Thank you. Incognita
The portion of the comment to which you refer was about Dominique, not you.
“The issue with Rosen’s statement is that it was blatantly insensitive to stay at home mothers”
Boo fucking hoo. Don’t you people EVER get tired of playing the victim? I thought it was the left that supposedly whined all the time. You sure can’t tell by conservative bloggers.
“Also you assume as most close-minded people on the extreme Left (or Right but not in this case) normally do that your opinion of what Rosen said is the only viable interpretation on Earth”
Well, I generally follow this rule under which, when a person like Rosen aims such a remark at an individual, I don’t leap to the assumption that it’s an insult to ME. Indeed, that’s once again the mark of a child — a common thread in today’s conservative “thought” on many subjects.
I told you this would reignite the Mommy Wars. Rosen was a fool to go down this path. As a stay at home mom I don’t view my decision as more worthy than a working mom’s. As a feminist I support all women’s choices. The problem comes into play when women have to work or have to stay at home. That’s what breeds resentment and insecurity.
The point here is that Rosen missed the point. Ann Romney had complete freedom of choice due to her finances. She didn’t have to stay at home or get a job. She didn’t have to clip coupons or stretch a paycheck. She didn’t have to budget for contraception or worry about the financial burden of taking care of an elderly parent.
And while money can’t solve every problem it does take a lot of them off the table. Ann Romney has a terrible illness, but she won’t have to worry about fighting with insurance companies – and even if they dropped her coverage she’d be fine. That’s why listening to Mitt Romney portray his wife as a struggling housewife in touch with the average woman rings hollow.
Poor Ann “Breast Cancer, MS” Romney! Put another car elevator in your house then explain how the average American woman has it so hard. It ain’t beanbag and it ain’t those mystical underwear. Rosen doesn’t lead my party or represent the women I know.
Pandora, I think you have it precisely right. It isn’t that Ms. Romney was a stay-at-home mom that makes her a dubious empath for most American women. It’s her long history of being a wealthy person. After all, studies show that many wealthy people tend to lack empathy for those significantly less fortunate than themselves. It’s not impossible, of course. But when you are wealthy and you also support your husband’s views that rich people need yet another round of large tax cuts and that Paul Ryan is correct to want to make deep and painful budget cuts to programs that help the needy and middle class, then that cinches it: you either don’t give a shit about the vast majority of Americans or you are simply too benighted by your wealth to understand what it’s like to be a commoner–female or otherwise.
Does Our President Even Have A Clue!?
On a $162,000 with Senate perks, a year salary they could not make ends meet! You have to be kidding. He is so out of touch it is mind boggling. And the masses want him as POTUS?
@R “On a $162,000 with Senate perks, a year salary they could not make ends meet! You have to be kidding.”
Uhhh. No. Most of them get to Congress with salaries MUCH higher than $162k. If you have a mortgage on a $3M home, could you afford such a pay cut? I sure couldn’t. You can ONLY make ends meet if your income is higher than your expenses. That goes for both the poor AND the moderately wealthy.
What’s your answer? Make them sell their property or their stocks before they’re allowed to serve?
Or do you really want a congress full of people who are very very wealthy? Great idea (extreme sarcasm).
@Geezer
Hilary Rosen is a Democrat solely becuase of the other party’s antipathy towards her sexual orientation. She’s a stone cold 1%er who made a killing as head of the RIAA suing 12 year olds. In short, she’s a limousine Democrat, not a left-winger.