"So first you'll go on Fox to be outraged.
Oh, and don't forget to tell them how I listen to you ..."
(Brian Synder/Reuters)
Talk about a lesson in overplaying your hand.
Ever since someone whose name you'd never heard until last week pointed out that Ann Romney's never worked—something, by the way, that Ann has said about herself—the Romney campaign has tried like H-E-double-hockey-sticks to use this non-issue to score lady points. It's not the Republicans who are waging war on women; oh no, it's President Obama and the Democrats, with Ann Romney as the most aggrieved victim.
And it doesn't help that when yukking it up privately with their richest donors, Ann explained just how "offended" she really was:
"It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother," [Ann] said. "That was a really defining moment, and I loved it."
It's hard to portray yourself as the sympathetic victim in all this when you're secretly loving it because you think it gives you an opening to exploit some manufactured outrage.
So Ann did what her husband does: she shook the Etch A Sketch and offered up a new spin in an interview with Diane Sawyer:
"That wasn't how I meant it," Romney told Sawyer, referring to the idea that the "present" in question was the ensuing backlash to Rosen's comments. "It was a birthday gift to me because I love the fact that we're talking about this. ... I love the fact that women are talking about deficit spending and the economy, I love that."
Sure, Ann. Okay. When you said in private that you love that someone attacked you for being a mother, what you meant was that you love we're having a national conversation about deficit spending? And thank god someone said something about you because women wouldn't be discussing the economy otherwise?
The Romneys can try to exploit and spin it however they want, but the truth is, no one's buying the "outrage" they're trying to sell. Especially not women:
Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think each one applies more to Barack Obama or more to Mitt Romney: Is in touch with the problems facing women today?
Obama 55
Romney 27
Go ahead, Mr. and Mrs. Romney. Spin
that.