Hilary Rosen Apologizes To Ann Romney

After a day of media attention over her remarks last night regarding Ann Romney, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen has apologized:

Hilary Rosen offered an apology Thursday after her comments about Ann Romney sparked an uproar and a debate over women and the economy.

“I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended,” Rosen, a top Democratic strategist and CNN contributor, said in a statement. “Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.”

Here’s the full statement via CNN:

“Let’s put the faux “war against stay at home moms” to rest once and for all. As a mom I know that raising children is the hardest job there is. As a pundit, I know my words on CNN last night were poorly chosen. In response to Mitt Romney on the campaign trail referring to his wife as a better person to answer questions about women than he is, I was discussing his lack of a record on the plight of women’s financial struggles. Here is my more fulsome view of the issues. As a partner in a firm full of women who work outside of the home as well as stay at home mothers, all with plenty of children, gender equality is not a talking point for me. It is an issue I live every day. I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended. Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.”

I doubt this is the end of this, though. The comment itself, and the manner in which people reacted to it, was all part of the “War on Women” culture war that has been going on since February. There doesn’t seem to me to be any sign that either side is going to step back from exploiting that culture war for their own partisan interests.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. John Burgess says:

    ‘Fulsome’? She actually said, ‘fulsome’? Guess she doesn’t know the primary meaning of that word. Her apology was pretty noisome, however.

  2. An Interested Party says:

    There doesn’t seem to me to be any sign that either side is going to step back from exploiting that culture war for their own partisan interests.

    Oh absolutely! As Republican legislatures around the country push laws to make the abortion process more traumatic for women, Democrats would be wrong to say anything about that, as such talk would be “exploiting the culture war for their own partisan interests”…

  3. Jeremy R says:

    Even though this whole thing was an incredibly stupid fake outrage (I suppose next Mitt Romney will be responsible for everything fellow CNN contributors Dana Loesch & Eric Erickson say?), you do have to be impressed by how the Romeny campaign played the media like fiddles:

    Having Ann sign up to twitter and post her first ever tweet responding to Rosen and tee-ing up the outraged press conferences and interviews of the next day.

    Taking Rosen’s objection to her qualifications to provide insight into working motherhood (“she’s never worked a day in her life”) by reframing it to an attack on stay at home moms (even though her children have been grown and out of the house for over a decade…).

  4. Fiona says:

    As long as there are political points to be scored, the issue (and the comment) won’t go away. But it’s silly to pretend that the Republican Party hasn’t been going after issues of concern to women such as access to health care and abortion rights. The class of 2010 in the House of Representatives has seemed a lot more concerned about culture war issues than fiscal responsibility; ditto for Republican legislatures with a big influx of Tea Party types.

  5. Tillman says:

    I think what the other commenters are saying is: you can’t exploit the culture war. You can only participate in it.

    The only people actually exploiting the culture war are marketing agencies, most likely.

  6. Tillman says:

    @Jeremy R: I think the strategist’s apology was also a political rejoinder. Notice she calls the war on stay-at-home moms fake.

  7. Hey Norm says:

    The most interesting thing about this entire episode?
    Obama cleaned Romney’s clock yesterday on Romney’s trumped-up claim of Obama waging War on Women. And they totally disarmed this faux-kerfuffle before it did any damage. And both things were played on Obama’s playing field.
    Two days do not a campaign make…but Big picture…it seems like the Obama campaign is organized, on it’s toes, loaded for bear, and a bunch of other cliches. If they continue to control the news cycles…it doesn’t look good for Mr. Bain.

  8. Drew says:

    Let’s see, this woman claims Romneys wife never worked a day in her life. And the Ivy league educated community organizer was slaving away at what, exactly?

  9. An Interested Party says:

    The class of 2010 in the House of Representatives has seemed a lot more concerned about culture war issues than fiscal responsibility; ditto for Republican legislatures with a big influx of Tea Party types.

    This, of course, proves what a lie it is that the Tea Party crowd is supposedly so worried about fiscal matters and not as equally animated about social/cultural issues…

    Let’s see, this woman claims Romneys wife never worked a day in her life. And the Ivy league educated community organizer was slaving away at what, exactly?

    I guess being a big time tycoon requires one to be completely disingenuous in one’s “analysis”…

  10. Hey Norm says:

    I certainly wouldn’t question Drew, one of the worlds most successful corporate financiers, but maybe…oh who knows…community organizing…you know…helping the people that the Romney’s pretend to understand.

  11. Hey Norm says:

    To people like Drew…the worlds greatest corporate financier…and other conservatives…the folks tha Obama helped as Community Organizer are mooches and leeches on society. And therein lies the choice in November. The middle class and those in need…or the upper 1%. It’s clear cut. There’s absolutely no ambiguity.

  12. Lit3Bolt says:

    As with most political memes, this one got very stupid, very quickly.

    It’s amazing that most political blogs and operatives and journalists are very good at disseminating memes but are comically bad at sustaining them or keeping them fresh. As such, these Beltway insider memes quickly flame out and frankly arrive almost stillborn due to the amount of blatant fake outrage.

    The Democrats’ “war on women” meme has been a successful framing issue, though, because of the drip-drip-drip of legislative stupidity Republicans are doing in each state they control. Since the natural Republican response is to double down, I suspect the Ann Romney framing to fail from predictable overreach while the larger “war on women” meme to march on, due to Jan Brewer and Scott Walker stupidity.

  13. Tillman says:

    @Drew: Humor me for a sec. Three quick “yes or no” questions: do you agree with Hillary Rosen that Romney’s wife never worked a day in her life? Do you think being a mother could be considered on par with having a job? Finally, did you read the entirety of what Doug posted?

    Your post doesn’t make sense to me. I need to know these answers because I’m presuming what they’d be, and if I’m right you are at best imperceptive and at worse verifiably unserious. I’d rather not judge before the facts are in.

  14. Tillman says:

    Oh wait, my mistake, you were referring to Obama and just trolling. I thought for a minute there you were attacking Rosen.

  15. Being a stay at home mom may be difficult if you don´t have maids and things like that. That´s not the case. Maybe it´s because I live in country where maids are pretty cheaper than in the US, but that´s fake outrage to the extreme.

  16. I want to steer clear of the politics surrounding the statement. However, it has certainly unleashed the age old mommy war of whose job is the hardest. It’s the working moms versus the stay at home moms. I think we need to change our thinking a bit in regard to this debate. It’s a classist problem. What do I mean by this? I go into detail here: http://www.themommypsychologist.com/2012/04/12/mommy-wars-whose-job-is-more-difficult/

    Feel free to check it out if interested.

  17. Loviatar says:

    The good Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes at TMV pretty much hits the nail on the head.

    TO Piers Morgan and Ann Romney: Wake up, For Most Women Today, it’s NOT a “Choice”

    Just this Piers: Ann said over and over and over (in film clips today shown also on CNN) ‘Women CHOOSE”… “Some women CHOOSE to stay home” Other women “CHOOSE” to work.

    Jay-zee on a crutch!!! What citadel do you AND Ann live on breathing rarified air?

    Many many women HAVE TO work. Have you gone daft? HAVE TO. When we have children, for millions of us, there is NO CHOICE.

    You and others want to make this about stay at home moms and how ‘holy’ they are.– have missed the point of what Ann said.

    She said CHOOSE/ CHOICE/CHOICES.

    She lives in fairyland if she thinks it’s a CHOICE for MILLIONS of WOMEN. And a journo should at the very least, make comment on that. MILLIONS OF WOMEN HAVE NO CHOICE.

    .

  18. legion says:

    @Drew: No, smart guy – the Ivy-league educated organizer was pointing out that it was ridiculous for Mitt to be taking domestic policy cues on women’s issues from someone whose entire life has been spent in a completely different world from the vast & overwhelming majority of American women. Try reading Rosen’s actual words first…