And the complete pander-iffic indignity of running for the GOP nomination. From Morgan Little, at the LATimes:
“Even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work,” Mitt Romney said in a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., in January. “And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that day care, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’ ”
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The clip, aired Sunday morning on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” shows a candidate with less leniency toward mothers than one would think, given the outpouring of praise given to mothers of all kinds after Rosen’s comments.
Second video, from 1994, at the link:
… “This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work,” Romney said. “Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs.”
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Romney then promoted Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a childcare firm that is “not off where people live, but where they work,” and allows for working parents to more readily tend to their children during the work day…
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To quote the late, irreplaceable Steve Gilliard: If your company tells you it’s offering so many perks ‘you’ll never have to leave the office’, it means they intend that you’ll never be able to leave the office.
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Presumably Romney, like his fellow Banana Republicans, dreams of returning to those halcyon days of the original Gilded Age, when working-class infants learned their place in GOP Jesus’s chain of being right from the start. Home care for the Alphas, company creches for the lesser orders — oh brave new world!
AA+ Bonds
I wish liberals the best of luck in convincing Americans that single mothers on the dole are morally equivalent to married housewives, specifically a pretty blonde married housewife with 5 kids and multiple sclerosis, but I don’t really think that it’s gonna be a winner for y’all
The Dangerman
After Obama beats Romney’s ass and Hillary shreds whatever troglodyte the Republicans nominate in 2016 (they should be going HARD right after Romney), how long will it take to deprogram the people that have bought into their cult?
Cacti
It’s sad that Willard thinks his wife of 43 years has no dignity.
Oh, right, he meant “experience the dignity of work if you’re not a rich, kept woman”.
The Dangerman
After Obama beats Romney’s ass and Hillary shreds whatever troglodyte the Republicans nominate in 2016 (they should be going HARD right after Romney), how long will it take to deprogram the people that have bought into their cult?
arguingwithsignposts
Somehow, i doubt that.
cathyx
Did he tell Ann to get to work after each child was 2 so that she could maintain some dignity?
AA+ Bonds
Look, like it or not there are a lot of Americans who consider it a lot more ‘honorable’ to get married than to get on the dole
You want to talk Brave New World, try convincing voters by November 2012 that child-rearing as society’s task (how assistance for single mothers is perceived) is equivalent to child-rearing as the task of a woman ‘traditional’ enough to not work outside the home because of her privilege, etc.
I hope that is not what you are trying to do because that’s how it looks and you only have a few months if you’re intending to completely rewrite how Americans view single mothers receiving government assistance
AA+ Bonds
Birth control, that was a winning issue for you; try to find more crazy shit Republicans are doing about that
Even stay-at-home moms want that shit available and boy howdy, do they ever
Jewish Steel
@AA+ Bonds: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/15census.html?hp&e
Amir Khalid
When the Obama campaign releases its Mitt Never Says The Same Thing Twice blooper reel, it’s going to be two hours long.
dmsilev
@AA+ Bonds: You know, making an actual argument might get you further than simply saying the same thing over and over and over again.
Just a thought.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nice strike back, AL.
David Koch
Disgusting.
This isn’t simply a war against women and a war against moms, but Romney is also waging a war on religion by trashing the Christian ethic of raising your kids as “undignified”.
Jesus is weeping.
Chyron HR
@AA+ Bonds:
Or we can just misrepresent Romney’s words to make him look bad. Kind of like what Republicans are trying to do, but with the added benefit that their candidate (as opposed to a random cable newscaster) actually said this shit.
But good luck trying to make the “nuanced” argument about what Mitt “really” meant. Like his spiritual predecessor in 2004, he was totally before it before he was against it!
The Republic of Stupidity
Now… let’s see how long it takes Mittens to get around to talking about the triumph of the will…
Gott Mitt Uns, Herr Romney?
JGabriel
Can you spot the concealed lie? Romney turned 18 in ’65 and spent the latter half of the decade in college and in France as a missionary. Not typically years people refer to as “when I was growing up.” For Mitt, that would be the ’50s.
Trying to make yourself look younger there, Mittens? Don’t want people to realize you’d be the fourth oldest US president ever, if elected?
.
The Republic of Stupidity
@AA+ Bonds:
I believe Rush Limbaugh has already won that battle for us…
JPL
It’s not the poor who are on the take. The mortgage interest deduction is 100 billion dollars that could go to taxes, that benefits mainly those in higher brackets. That would pay for a lot of childcare.
poco
@The Republic of Stupidity: You win the internets! Great comment. I always thought Gott Mitt Uns was a reference to cold weather and the need for gloves.:-))
Comradde PhysioProffe
Thanks for the Gilly shout-out. He was my grandblogfather.
Mike in NC
How is this any less offensive and tone deaf than the time Dubya told some poor schmuck who was working three jobs to get by that “You’re living the American dream”? Goddamn sociopaths.
EconWatcher
I don’t often agree with AA+ Bonds, but he’s (or she’s) right on this one: you aren’t going to swing any of those swing voters with the argument that women on public assistance have as much right to stay at home with kids as those supported by working and taxpaying husbands. If you belielve that, you’re living in a leftie version of the echo chamber.
JGabriel
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cathyx:
Ann Romney always maintained her dignity via her diligent Austrian warmblood equine dress-ahge schedule.
.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
heh.
Chyron HR
@EconWatcher:
Yup, all Mitt needs to do to defuse this bombshell is to get up and proudly say, “I was only talking about those lazy niggers, okay?”
Total political winner there.
Arclite
@The Republic of Stupidity:
This was my exact thought when I saw the headline on TPM earlier today! Mitt really is one clueless MFcker.
Scott
I miss Steve Gilliard every goddamned day. Oh, that he could be here for this electoral clusterfuck.
AA+ Bonds
@dmsilev:
You can do whatever you want, I’ve said my piece
@Jewish Steel:
Hey and I agree it would be sweet if people voted like they depended on government assistance, because they do
Ben Cisco
He really can’t help himself, can he?
@Amir Khalid: Hell, the TRAILER for the blooper reel will run that long.
suzanne
@efgoldman: Concur. Hillary doesn’t want to run again, and I don’t blame her in the slightest.
After this weekend, I think Cory Booker’s future looks bright, if he can manage not to pull a Weiner or an Edwards or a Craig.
suzanne
Damnit. I”m in moderation for naming a certain ex-Congressman from Queens,
JPL
@Scott: Me, too. He died to soon.
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
All 4 guests (and I think the host) on Chris Matthew’s this morning had Hillary running; I didn’t consider her age, however.
Ben Franklin
@AA+ Bonds:
Don’t let some guy in the Posse de-rail your rant. Carry on.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@EconWatcher: I am very glad that Anne Romney had the ability to choose to stay home and take care of her children, with the ability to pay for help when she needed it, and not affect her children’s future by significantly reducing her families income by not earning a salary.
eemom
@efgoldman:
I agree.
I must say, the predictions around here for who’s going to run in ’16 have been some grade A stoopid.
JPL
@Scott: I just reread the NYTimes obit. I can’t believe it has been almost five years since he died.
eemom
@AA+ Bonds:
is there a DSM-V category for Paranoid Politicophobia?
Maybe you ought to just hide under the bed until it’s all over.
[reposted from the ABL thread below on the, ahem, exact same topic]
Ash Can
I have to say that I’m glad to see this offal bubbling to the surface in the corporate mass media. The more people that can be alerted to the fact that this guy is completely full of shit, the better.
eemom
@AA+ Bonds:
also too: if you’re not a liberal, what the hell do you care what we do?
El Cid
It’s totally different when a Republican says it, because no matter what he said, it’s different than when a Democrat says it. Even if it’s the Republican candidate versus a hired PR flack for BP.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@AA+ Bonds: The other day, when DougJ brought up the horse thing, as some people pointed out, it’s not the event in isolation, it’s one more thing added onto the image of Mitt.
Litlebritdifrnt
Here’s another thought. There was a story the other day by one of the sons “we never had nannies” or some such bullshit. Well my question is “why the hell not?” If you are trying to tell me that you are making boat loads of cash and you don’t hire help (nannies, maids, cooks) to help your wife raise five boys while she is suffering from MS and Breast Cancer, then you are one miserable mother fucker. If you just left her to fend for herself with those illnesses and just banked all the fucking cash that you could, then I have no words to say to you Mittster”
You can damn well be assured that if I was making 25 million a year I would have all sorts of maids, gardeners and a full time live in companion for Cueball.
suzanne
One of the many ironies is that when I was growing up, I knew many of my LDS friends and classmates came from families that were receiving government assistance of some kind, be it free/reduced lunch, food stamps, etc, and every single one of them had a stay-at-home mother, and most had at least six siblings.
However, my mother, who had one kid and a job in order to support that one kid, was shunned by our neighbors. Hiiiiiiii-larious.
Lolis
@AA+ Bonds:
It’s about the hypocrisy. I read a long time ago that swing voters really like candidates who they feel are honest and consistent. One of the things they are most affected by is hypocrisy in candidates. This is about getting women to see Mitt that doesn’t really respect all moms and he just says whatever is convenient at the moment. We are not trying to make the country suddenly supportive of welfare moms.
Riilism
Completely and utterly OT, via Boing Boing, Children cover Rammstein. Suck it, “Game On” kids…
Thor Heyerdahl
@JPL: 5 years! Man that’s depressing.
Steve Gilliard was one who kept me sane through the bush years. What a powerhouse writer he was on just about everything! His “I said what I meant and I meant what I said” is a code I try to stand by when I write. He would have eviscerated the Republican hypocrisy so much over the last 4 years his blog would look like a slaughterhouse floor.
I’ll go pour a couple fingers of scotch and raise it to Steve tonight.
Oh and Fuck the Fucking Yankees…watching the Mets next month here in Toronto in memory of Steve.
Baud
@Ash Can: Romney has literally no redeeming qualities. He would be a fascinating case-study if the future of the nation weren’t at risk.
Lojasmo
@AA+ Bonds:
I think it’s a sellable point to democrats, and a lot of swing voters.
Hell, 75% of Americans believed Iraq had WMD, and it was demonstrably false.
Jewish Steel
@AA+ Bonds:
I don’t disagree that your average Ameican will go on being moved by retro home and hearth rhetoric long past the point we all live in some sort of Matrix style distopian virtual reality. Kind of like the idea of the family farm persisted deep into the agribusiness era. But trends are pointing to a time when ‘family’ will, eventually, no longer be synonymous with ‘the family on Happy Days.’
ciotog
I cried when I heard Steve Gilliard had died. I wish he were still here being a fighting Democrat for us.
El Cid
@Baud: It is quite bizarre how this year the Republicans are these super-pure personal reproductions of the reprehensible values they contain.
JWL
Does the Mormon Church provide day care services for its flock? If so, could it serve as a blueprint for day care services across the country? If not, has Romney given a second’s thought to a workable idea that states could adopt to deal with a day care service mandate? (and there’s that word again).
The last question is rhetorical- fuck no, he hasn’t.
Dave
“Banana Republicans”! Perfect!
Litlebritdifrnt
You guys have got to see this
http://gothamist.com/2012/04/14/ann_romney_in_1994_mitt_thought_it.php#photo-1
Of course all students have stock that they can sell to put themselves through college don’t they? And how about “we waited four years to have the third” well how the hell did you do that Anne? Abstinence? I don’t think so.
Gex
Undercover Boss is intended to prep us for living in company towns with undercover cameras everywhere and where the boss can spy on us 24×7. Hell, people are signing up for it!
Riilism
@efgoldman: Not entirely disagreeing wit ya, but I think it kinda depends on what she wants to do and whether she thinks she has the energy to do it. IMO, the age thingy has a great deal more to do with how the traditional candidates, i.e, men, age and retain their mental faculties and energy levels. Women live longer and retain their health longer. If she felt she could do it and displayed no clear indications of senility or poor health, I could get behind her candidacy. Just a thought….
ericblair
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Luckily, I don’t believe a word of it, only possibly in the technically true “they were actually au-pairs m’kay” sense. Because yeah, what kind of oblivious insensitive asshole would you be then. Oh yeah.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t know if this is a winning rhetorical point, but it certainly shows that it’s common for people to say “work” when they mean “work for pay,” without intentionally disparaging the work that mothers do. And that was what Rmoney quite disingenuously leapt to do, and the press followed suit without thinking twice.
FlipYrWhig
@Litlebritdifrnt: And yet again she didn’t say the magic words “outside the home” or “for pay.”. The whole kerfuffle has been utter horseshit. From a silky-maned jumping horse.
slag
I’m listening to the Chris Hayes clip on this issue: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up-with-chris-hayes/47053681#47053984 and it’s quite good. It’s pretty damning that Republicans equate dignity with pay. Does someone who gets paid more have more dignity? What about the Mittster when he went on his mission in France? Was that dignified or should he have been shunned by all polite society until he pulled himself up by his father’s bootstraps and got a real job? How far does this “dignity equals pay” argument go? And exactly how much money does a person have to make before we can determine them to be dignified?
Southern Beale
Wait, so the only people who need that “dignity of work” are those who receive some form of public assistance? Mitt’s own wife didn’t need the “dignity of work”?
IOKIYAR
Micheline
@EconWatcher: Completely agree.
Martin
So who is going to explain to the troops deployed in Afghanistan that are receiving food stamps that they fail to appreciate the dignity of work. I fucking hope someone catches Mitt explaining that to a Marine on camera.
HRA
I found it amusing to watch John McCain’s face during this video. I also did watch Chris Hayes.
I am loving this age of technology. Willard is such a creep and worse, too.
El Cid
I simply cannot believe we have people like Chris Hayes hosting a fucking TV show, on the TV, on real channels. This is too fucking amazing — it can’t last.
danimal
I work in the public assistance field for a local government. I want to scream when I hear conservative pols talk about the dignity of work while screwing over the working poor.
R-money can shove it up his preening corporate raider ass; the way to show work has dignity is to reward the people who work. Even if they are poor, even if they are a different skin color, even if they have children. Work has dignity, and it is rare that conservative politicians put their money where their mouths are.
Cacti
@JWL:
Hell no.
To give you an idea of how cheap the Mormon church is, they got rid of paid custodians and instituted a policy of asking the flock to volunteer to keep the meeting houses clean.
Mitt’s “compassion” for the poor is straight out of LDS Inc.’s playbook.
Southern Beale
I just found this, hadn’t seen it before: as a student at Stanford U, Mitt Romney protested FOR the Vietnam War and the draft … but of course, he didn’t have to serve. He went to France for his Mormon mission instead.
That just pisses me off like you would not believe. That’s like … Chicken Hawk, elite edition.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Southern Beale: Of course he is a chicken hawk – most of the heavy hitters in NeoConfederate politics are. Pundits and radio “entertainers” too. And their base laps that shit up, even as they bury their war dead. I don’t get it.
Nutella
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Chicken hawk and draft dodger.
He’s old enough to have dodged the last US draft: This point should be pushed to emphasize both his hypocrisy and his age.
Peter
The problem with nominating a weathervane like Romney is that no matter what he tries to criticize his opponent for, his opponent can easily present a clip of him agreeing with his opponent’s position.
TenguPhule
The Dignity of Chopping Romney’s Head off with an Axe and mounting it on a Pole for warning to future generations about the dangers of being a rich evil asshole. Why don’t we ever talk about that dignity?
TenguPhule
Whoring for money and power is a perfectly dignified line of work.
Chris
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
I get why most of their voters lap it up. I don’t get those people among military and ex-military guys who’re eager to eat up the same shit. Especially those of them who were outraged by Clinton’s draft record and managed to yawn through the draft-dodging records of Bush and Chambliss while shrugging off vicious attacks on Gore, Kerry, McCain and Cleland.
I guess tribalism really does rule all. For some.
JGabriel
“… And Ann, my wife, said, ‘Fuck that noise, Mittens, I’m going horse-riding.'”
.
Origuy
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Ann Romney was diagnosed with MS in 1998, when her youngest son was 17 or 18. The breast cancer turned up in 2008.
Nquest
@AA+ Bonds:
I suppose there aren’t any ‘pretty blonde” single or married housewives with 5 kids or less and multiple sclerosis who are “on the dole.”
And “moral equivalence”? Ok. What makes Ann Romney’s struggles different and more worthy of respect or deference than those of a similar situated woman of lesser means, even a woman who receives public assistance?
horatius
@AA+ Bonds: Concern troll is concerned.
patrick II
Romney:
And why would it require three jobs to support a family where one once did in a country that has more doubled the GDP since the 60’s? Is there a reason the working class is worse off now than fifty years ago? Maybe it has something to do with policy that defaults all of the money to the rich.
So, Mitch asserts we can no longer have the utopia of a stay at home mom, in large part because of his own party’s policies, and rather than change those policies he wants to aggregate more wealth for the few by cutting programs for women’s health. What a guy. Following that logic, he will next assert we will need four jobs to support a family so he will be forced to cut programs even more.
Cacti
@JGabriel:
Yep. Mitt’s an old man trying hard to look like a 50-something. People who “grew up in 1960’s” aren’t turning Medicare eligible this year.
Mitt was born 19-months after V-J Day in dubya-dubya two, or near the end of year two of Harry Truman’s first term. Willard’s an old fart.
Nemesis
In the background, what are those? Homo sapiens who have finer features than men and longer hair. Is it a rare sighting of gop woman? Cant recall the last time I saw one who was allowed in public without her owners permission.
Nemesis
@patrick II: Wait…what?
But yer wife doesnt work.
Why are you telling me what to do, but you refuse to follow your own beliefs?
Catsy
I think the interesting contrast here is with the manufactured outrage the right has been desperately ginning up over Rosen’s comments. The entire basis of their outrage is the false claim that Rosen was attacking all stay-at-home parents when she described Ann Romney as never having worked a day in her life, yet here is Romney implying that there is no “dignity of work” in parents who have no job but stay at home with their kids. So according to what it pleases them to call “logic”, Romney, too, is saying that raising kids at home isn’t work.
Of course Romney was doing nothing of the sort here–from the context in which he said this it is crystal clear that by “work” he meant “paid employment”. But that’s exactly what Rosen meant too, and the context surrounding her comments was just as clear. And all this does is highlight just how fake the outrage over her comments really is.