One of my colleagues here at The Rachel Maddow Show reminded me this afternoon of comments President Obama made to Associated Press last week about the false-equivalence fallacy. Obama said, "I think that there is often times the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and an equivalence is presented -- which reinforces I think people's cynicism about Washington generally."
Given the political uproar of the day, it seems like a good time to revisit the subject.
Mitt Romney was losing the so-called "war on women. Badly. Until Democratic operative Hilary Rosen appeared on CNN Wednesday night and seemingly derided his wife's decision to stay at home and raise the couple's five boys.
What much of the political world seems to be saying today is that the "war on women" now has two competing counterweights.
One the one hand, we have a party that has pushed for restricting contraception; cutting off Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds; forcing physicians to lie to patients about abortion and breast cancer; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; trap laws at abortion clinics, forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, opposition to prenatal care, and measures that make it harder for women to fight pay discrimination.
On the other hand, we have a media pundit with no connection to her party's presidential campaign who said something about Mitt Romney's wife professional background.
Don't you see? Both sides clearly have a problem here. Republicans were losing the "war on women," but not anymore.
Let's pause to appreciate the differences between policy and politics. A public policy offensive involving women's health, waged at the local, state, and federal level is a serious development, worthy of scrutiny. It affects people in direct and personal ways.
This is not to say rhetoric is irrelevant -- I'd be the first to argue that Rush Limbaugh's multi-day tirades targeting Sandra Fluke mattered -- but to obscure the differences a national policy initiative and a 30-second soundbite on CNN, which the pundit has since apologized for, is take the false-equivalence fallacy to depths that simply aren't healthy for our public discourse.
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GOP will witness the fury of women's scorn in November!
The whole point is that women are voters. Voters want the candidate to be the one to pay major attention to voters' needs and concerns, not the candidate's wife. If Romney wants women to vote for him, he better begin himself to understand their concerns and pay much more attention to them. It's nice if his wife is concerned about women's needs, but it is essential that he understands and is concerned about those needs.
I do not think we should fault Mrs. Romney for having servants, nannies and tutors to raise the children. However, on its face, Rosen's comments are entirely factual by any standard of "work" that most of us have.
I don't think people are necessarily faulting the Romney's for having nannies. The point is not necessarily that having a nanny is bad, but that this shows how out of touch and wealthy they are. Hey I'm glad they have the money to have the luxury of nannies. More power to them! But the majority of Americans do not have this luxury. The majority of Americans can barely pay for daycare let alone someone to take care of the children part time. The whole comments about nannies comes from the perspective that Mitt Romney has no earthly idea what it's like to be not rich.
Yup. Anne Romney had the luxury to stay at home and raise five sons. Were there nannies, housekeepers, cooks, maids & butlers, pool boys, etc? Or did Mrs. Romney really have to cook for 7 while she vacuumed the rugs and polished her Caddies? So . . . I'm slightly pissed at this little dust-up, especially since the class issue doesn't seem to be getting much play.
I have no doubt that the Romneys have been fine parents and faithful to their religion. I doubt if they have ever intentionally broken any laws. So when they are told that the people have no bread - and they seriously ask why those people don't eat cake instead - they are not being evil.
Still - the dog on the roof thing ...
I'd like to expand the "false equivalency" discussion to include "equal weight" reporting by TV news. It is galling and it chaps my butt to hear a TV anchor give equal weight to, say, the President of the United States and some guy on a street corner, with a followup summation, "Well, there is clearly some disagreement here. America remains divided on this issue."
I blame that on the right's belief in the power of a single anecdote to swing an argument their way, and to the fact that the right has basically beaten the media into submission over the decades. It doesn't matter if you've got 97% of climate scientists agreeing on the basic facts of climate change if they can tell a rambling story about just one dermatologist who doesn't believe it. They've gotten the media to basically play the same idiotic game.
Rosen comments were in tuned to the Rich and Famous in this country. They so amply want to say oh how they understand; however, the nanny never say a word or are they allowed to. The nanny is the real person Romney should have refered to in understanding women issues and not a wife who stayed at home to talk to the nanny and wait for her husband at which home. Especially since those 5 sons never bothered to serve the country because they were so working to get MITT owed presidency because he is Mitt. Even the Prince chose to serve.
All of this (on both sides) is just self-serving noise unless laws and policies are changed. I haven't seen much effort to do that. I'm a single mom of school-age triplets. I was a government employee for 33 years and finally retired, because it was killing me. Because I was older when I had my children, I was able to use leave for time off before and after their birth. Without that (the position most younger women would have been in), I would have had to take leave without pay. I could have worked from home for much of that time off, but even though I asked to telework, and DOD had a telework policy back then, my organization said nobody could telework. I raised the issue to a higher level and was told by the Army telework coordinator that even she (who had just had a baby) was not allowed to telework. I actually did telework (without pay) to complete the work that was pending (conscientious employee that I was). When I went back to work 3 months after my triplets were born, I asked for some time flexibility since I was up all night feeding babies. My supervisor executed a telework agreement with me, and then she was told by the director of the organization that she couldn't do that. She allowed me flexibility informally, and without that, I don't know what I would have done. Childcare initially cost about 97 percent of my net pay. Without an equity loan, I would not have made it. When the kids were a little older (toddlers and early elementary school), childcare was less, but it was still more than most people could afford. My leave balance was always low (40-60 hours). When the kids had to stay home from school because of illness, I either had to hire a nanny service ($$) or stay home and use what little leave I had. Again, I always kept requesting flexibility and telework, but despite my excellent work history and the fact that I was a GS-15 level employee, I wasn't allowed either.
If we really value stay-at-home mothers, we as a nation need to pass laws that:
1. Require paid leave after babies are born.
2. Establish free or low-cost childcare.
3. Require telework, results-only work environments (ROWE), and/or other workplace flexibilities so that moms (and dads) of babies and school-age kids can do their jobs and be present in their children's lives.
Other countries do this. Why can't we?
Again, if we really value parenthood, we need to enact laws and policies to show we value parenthood.