ABOUT THAT RIDICULOUS "WOMEN IN BINDERS" MEME...

 Sandra Fluke holds a rally in a parking spot at the Sak 'N Save in Reno

Have you heard the latest joke on the internet?  It's the one about notorious birth-control hound Sandra Fluke and her rallies in Nevada this weekend.  You know your 15 minutes of fame are up when you can't even fill a single space in a grocery store parking lot.  Judging by the photographs provided by the tens of people who were there, it really was as embarrassing and awkward as you might expect.  But you know what they say: war is hell!

Yes, that's right.  I'm talking about the war on women that is being waged by evil Rethuglicans in the vivid imaginations of the Democrats, desperate to exploit what they perceive as Mitt Romney's "woman problem."  After last Tuesday's debate the Democrats had fun promoting a meme based on nothing more than the way Romney phrased an answer about his efforts to hire more women when he was governor of Massachusetts. The "binders full of women" nonsense was kinda funny as an internet meme but completely ridiculous as a serious Obama talking point.  In fact, it actually works better as a Romney talking point. 


No doubt recognizing that fact, Virginia Heffernan of Yahoo! News wrote a piece on Thursday entitled "Romney and the binder blunder," in which she used the meme as a springboard into a few of the usual threadbare talking points:

First, his answer to a question about the grave subject of wage inequality flaunts his gender bias: In his anecdote, Romney ostentatiously refuses to consider qualified applicants just because they’re men.

Second, Romney in this instance was hiring for positions largely about optics: He wanted women in his cabinet so he could say he had women in his cabinet. He recruited women to be women—not cabinet members.

Third, the binders response raises the specter of a still more hideous idea. Before answering the question, Romney had been reminded that women earn about 72 percent what their male counterparts do—and his response was to say, “Exactly! That’s why, given half a chance, I hire women!” Bottom line, Romney recruits women because they look good and they come cheap.

The remark has done more than alienate women, for whom—as all recent data confirms—no one needs to do any special favors. For years, and to the despair of mothers of sons, females have been far more educated and better qualified than male applicants for almost anything. They also get jobs easily and don’t need someone searching high and low for binders of resumes. They just need to get paid fairly for what they do.

Lastly, Romney’s remark exposed something on flagrant display all night. It’s that he’s a boss—and only a boss. He sees everything from the throne of a massive realm: Massachusetts, Bain Capital, and the many businesses he’s “had the privilege of staffing,” or however he puts it.

From the standpoint of journalistic integrity, there's quite a bit of fail in Heffernan's ramblings.  First, she completely fabricates a weird claim of gender bias...against men?  In her fanciful interpretation of Romney's statement she chooses to portray his interest in hiring more women as being the result of a bias against qualified male staffers.  It's absurd.

Second, she claims that Romney only wanted to hire women so that he could say he had hired women.  Again, that's a rather self-serving assumption on her part based on nothing but wishful thinking.  Furthermore, she misses an obvious hypocrisy by ignoring the fact that most of Obama's campaign has been crafted to appeal to women...so that he can get re-elected. Obama doesn't do anything or help any group unless it benefits him politically.

Third, she invokes the notorious "gender wage gap" and then completely misquotes Romney to make it seem as if his interest in hiring more women was based on how cheaply they work.  Really? Romney hired more women because he's so thrifty that he couldn't resist the bargain pricing? The 72% figure also contradicts Obama's political advertising which claimed that the figure was 77%.  And then there's this hypocrisy: The large wage discrepancy in the Obama White House.

Heffernan then steps on the liberal message itself by acknowledging what Conservative women already understand: the fact that women are doing just fine when it comes to succeeding in the workplace.  She acknowledges that women no longer need special treatment and so on top of everything else, in her mind Romney is guilty of insulting women by patronizing them?  Again, by the standards of her own liberalism it would seem that Romney would be a hero rather than a villain.  

But if having a patronizing attitude towards women is a bad thing then why is she so intent on defending Barack Obama?  As I said, most of his campaign has been based on patronizing women as lesser beings who are incapable of being concerned about issues beyond our "lady parts." And for good measure she throws in some quasi-class warfare rhetoric about Romney acting like a "boss" or something. 

I've pointed out the many reasons why Virginia Heffernan can't be trusted as a source for anything more than lame talking points and even lamer attempts at snark.  So let's go straight to the debate transcript:

QUESTION: In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

OBAMA: Well, Katherine, that's a great question. And, you know, I was raised by a single mom who had to put herself through school while looking after two kids. And she worked hard every day and made a lot of sacrifices to make sure we got everything we needed. My grandmother, she started off as a secretary in a bank. She never got a college education, even though she was smart as a whip. And she worked her way up to become a vice president of a local bank, but she hit the glass ceiling. She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career.

She didn't complain. That's not what you did in that generation. And this is one of the reasons why one of the first -- the first bill I signed was something called the Lily Ledbetter bill. And it's named after this amazing woman who had been doing the same job as a man for years, found out that she was getting paid less, and the Supreme Court said that she couldn't bring suit because she should have found about it earlier, whereas she had no way of finding out about it. So we fixed that. And that's an example of the kind of advocacy that we need, because women are increasingly the breadwinners in the family. This is not just a women's issue, this is a family issue, this is a middle-class issue, and that's why we've got to fight for it.

It also means that we've got to make sure that young people like yourself are able to afford a college education. Earlier, Governor Romney talked about he wants to make Pell Grants and other education accessible for young people.

Well, the truth of the matter is, is that that's exactly what we've done. We've expanded Pell Grants for millions of people, including millions of young women, all across the country.

We did it by taking $60 billion that was going to banks and lenders as middlemen for the student loan program, and we said, let's just cut out the middleman. Let's give the money directly to students.

And as a consequence, we've seen millions of young people be able to afford college, and that's going to make sure that young women are going to be able to compete in that marketplace.

But we've got to enforce the laws, which is what we are doing, and we've also got to make sure that in every walk of life we do not tolerate discrimination.

That's been one of the hallmarks of my administration. I'm going to continue to push on this issue for the next four years.

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"

And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.

Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school.

She said, I can't be here until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.

We're going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I'm going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they're going to be anxious to hire women. In the -- in the last women have lost 580,000 jobs. That's the net of what's happened in the last four years. We're still down 580,000 jobs. I mentioned 31/2 million women, more now in poverty than four years ago.

What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers that are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a flexible work schedule that gives women opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

This is what I have done. It's what I look forward to doing and I know what it takes to make an economy work, and I know what a working economy looks like. And an economy with 7.8 percent unemployment is not a real strong economy. An economy that has 23 million people looking for work is not a strong economy. An economy with 50 percent of kids graduating from college that can't finds a job, or a college level job, that's not what we have to have. 

CROWLEY: Governor?

ROMNEY: I'm going to help women in America get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.

CROWLEY: Mr. President why don't you get in on this quickly, please?

OBAMA: Katherine, I just want to point out that when Governor Romney's campaign was asked about the Lilly Ledbetter bill, whether he supported it? He said, "I'll get back to you." And that's not the kind of advocacy that women need in any economy. Now, there are some other issues that have a bearing on how women succeed in the workplace. For example, their healthcare. You know a major difference in this campaign is that Governor Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making.

I think that's a mistake. In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured. Because this is not just a -- a health issue, it's an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family's pocket. Governor Romney not only opposed it, he suggested that in fact employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage.

That's not the kind of advocacy that women need. When Governor Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country, who rely on Planned Parenthood for, not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings. That's a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country. And it makes a difference in terms of how well and effectively women are able to work. When we talk about child care, and the credits that we're providing. That makes a difference in whether they can go out there and -- and earn a living for their family.

These are not just women's issues. These are family issues. These are economic issues.

And one of the things that makes us grow as an economy is when everybody participates and women are getting the same fair deal as men are.

CROWLEY: Mr. President...

OBAMA: And I've got two daughters and I want to make sure that they have the same opportunities that anybody's sons have. That's part of what I'm fighting for as president of the United States.

CROWLEY: I want to move us along here to Susan Katz, who has a question. And, Governor, it's for you. 

QUESTION: Governor Romney, I am an undecided voter, because I'm disappointed with the lack of progress I've seen in the last four years. However, I do attribute much of America's economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration.  Since both you and President Bush are Republicans, I fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?

ROMNEY: Thank you. And I appreciate that question.

I just want to make sure that, I think I was supposed to get that last answer, but I want to point out that that I don't believe...

OBAMA: I don't think so, Candy.

ROMNEY: ... I don't believe...

OBAMA: I want to make sure our timekeepers are working here.

ROMNEY: The time -- the time...

CROWLEY: OK. The timekeepers are all working. And let me tell you that the last part, it's for the two of you to talk to one another, and it isn't quite as (inaudible) you think.

But go ahead and use this two minutes any way you'd like to, the question is on the floor.

ROMNEY: I'd just note that I don't believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not. And I don't believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care of not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives. And -- and the -- and the president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong.

OBAMA: Governor...

As you can see, a number of significant things occurred during that segment of the debate.  They include:

• Obama was given a question that was obviously designed to let him brag about what a great president he has been for American women.  It might as well as been phrased "Tell us just how much you love women, Mr. President, and all the wonderful things you've done for us."
• The question was based on a highly misleading claim, namely that women are paid only 72% of what men doing the same job are paid.
• Romney talked about the importance of flexibility in the work place for women who have children and can't stay at the office till all hours of the night.  That's an important thing but the Establishment media ignored that in order to promote the "binders of women" meme.
• As Romney was making some excellent points Crowley interrupted him and invited Obama to jump in and refute was Romney was saying.  
• Obama then proceeded to tell one his bigger whoppers when he claimed that "millions of women" across the country rely on Planned Parenthood for their mammograms and cervical cancer screenings.  Crowley should have but did not call Obama on this blatant falsehood. As we know, she reserved her "fact-checking" exclusively for Romney. 
• Obama also made the peculiar accusation that it's Romney who wants Washington to dictate to women with regard to their health care choices.  Umm, what?
• When it came time for Romney to get a question, it was not, unlike the Obama question, a softball designed to allow him to promote his record or his platform.  Rather, he was linked by the so-called "undecided voter" to the "failures" of the Bush administration and then asked to explain how he's any different.  And who was responsible for picking the questions and the order in which they were asked?  Oh, that's right.  It was Candy Crowley, heavyweight champion of "fact-checkers..."
• Brilliant, right?  Creating the opportunity for a little Bush-bashing while at the same time putting Romney in the awkward position of having to throw Bush under the bus and, possibly, irritate the GOP base.  Romney ultimately handled the question as well as he could.  But before he did, he tried to get a chance to offer rebuttal to Obama's follow-up on the pay equity question.  Crowley scoffed but allowed it, which caused Obama to whine about the time.  

Time and time again we have seen Obama and his clueless sidekick Joe Biden run away from their own failures by constantly interrupting, heckling and whining to the moderator when Romney and Ryan are giving their answers.  And when Romney or Ryan have been allowed to answer, the response from Team Obama is to accuse them of telling lies. Obama also relies heavily on friendly moderators and the Establishment Media to repeat and validate the accusations.

But the bias and total lack of professionalism we've seen from debate moderators is a topic for another time.  So let me finish this article by going back to the very first piece of legislation that Obama signed into law and echoing what so many other Conservatives have already pointed out: the Lily Ledbetter Act was never really about equal pay for equal work.  As shown in the transcript above, Obama himself admitted it in the debate.  And Joe Biden admitted it as well on Saturday.

Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the law actually exacerbates the gender gap discouraging companies from hiring women due to concerns about expensive and frivolous law suits.