Put aside, for the moment, the snotty and snide aspect of Hilary Rosen’s comment that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”
Put aside, for the moment, the psychological need of liberal female pundits to belittle a woman who chose a different path in life, while the person whom they belittle has no commensurate need to belittle the life choice of the liberal female pundits.
Put aside, for the moment, that the liberal female pundits belittling Ann Romney for having lived in an economically privileged position also live an economically privileged life.
Put aside, for the moment, all of the irony and hypocrisy.
On what logical basis do these pundits assert that only a woman who has struggled economically in life is qualified to speak about economic issues affecting women?
Now let’s not put aside the ironies and hypocrisy.
If a life of economic struggle is a prerequisite for a woman to speak about economic issues affecting women, then aren’t many if not most of the liberal female pundits belittling Ann Romney disqualified from the discussion, too?
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No,it doesn’t. My definition of a liberal is “someone who best knows how to spend MY money”, and by that definition they are infinitely qualified to speak for the masses!
It’s like the movies: “Tales of the working class as told by rich Hollywood stars!” (Firesign Theatre, 1969)
As many of us have observed about all identity politics…
Taken to its logical extreme, the idea you have to have [blank] elected representatives to represent [blank] constituents requires that I HAVE to go to Washington to represent myself, and you yourself.
This, of course, contradicts what we…in our better selves…believe about humanity; we are, at root, the same.
This is certainly what the Founders believed as they gave us the idea of a functioning representative democracy.
That conforms to what we also know of the human experience. We read great literature, and understand great art, because of what other humans were telling us about the broader humanity they saw in very different times.
The Enlightenment taught us we could…and should…be linked via empathy and sympathy, and that vicarious experience was important and instructive.
Which is why we can understand and feel for other humans from far distant times and places, and, somewhat ironically, forms the basis for appeals to help others in blighted parts of our current world.
But…again…the Collective is about DIVISION. NOT UNITY, except on its own terms.
The purpose of so-called “identity politics” is supposed to be parity. It doesn’t mean black representatives represent black constituencies. It means that the make up of body politic reflects the demographic make up of the one constituency called American citizens. It is important and necessary because no one should want power concentrated in one demographic only, which has been the truth of our history until very recently.
If people are okay with power dominated by white men, then they can’t really complain about power being concentrated in black hands, of female hands, etc. Parity allows everyone to be represented. It attempts to correct without yanking power away from the dominant group entirely. However, if the dominant demographic refuses to share, it will certainly evolve into yanking that power.
Thank you Professor Jacobson, for linking my article.
SHould say *Thank you for linking my article. Apologies for the typo.
“The purpose of so-called ‘identity politics’ is supposed to be parity.”
Oh, I understand the aspirational pretext.
I ALSO understand the cynical reality. We can all see the “minority districts”, which are themselves an affront to the aspirational verbiage, and serve only to give a race-linked freehold on power to the likes of Waters and Jackson-Lee.
We can all see the glowing-hot racism, sexism, class-warfare and other forms of divisive rhetoric that is the hallmark of “identity studies” programs on our campuses.
In my own case, I don’t give a fig about my representative’s “demographic”…I care how they THINK. And a woman or person of any color does not think a given way, and certainly may think very alike myself.
Nail, Head.
Should we also have to put aside the fact that Obama never ran so much as a corner candy store before taking charge of the country and making massive, ill-conceived bets on how to make its economy well?
For the credentials-are-everything crowd, did he at least major in economics or business?
Have most media talking heads and journalism school grads ever run a business? Ever been intimately involved in all the plethora of issues they cover? Have they ever been in the military? In intelligence? In law enforcement? In the insurance industry? In medicine? Been a small business owner? Been a hunter/gun owner? Religious?
I’m sure these talking heads and journalism school grads have been/done all these things … because they’re not shy about commenting on them … and many other subjects … like they are experts. Don’t tell me they haven’t packed all these experiences into their lives (wow, they must be busy) and that, instead, they glean all they “know” almost exclusively through reading and talking to people … because anybody, even Ann Romney, can do that!
I dunno … they say she hasn’t worked a day in her life … sounds like a lot of free time to do a heck of a lot of reading … just like they do!
But Ann Romney? She’d just better keep her mouth shut because she doesn’t have the worldly experience of a community organizer nor the life-, business-, or worldly experience and expertise of a Soledad O’Brien or an Ezra Klein … getting Wikipedia feeds into their ears and sharing the wisdom of having lived their lives in the hard-knocks reality-show reality of university classrooms.
Is Katie Couric still around to show her legal wisdom by throwing a pop-quiz at Barack Obama, the great constitutional scholar, to give a coherent explanation of his recent pronouncement on the SCOTUS?
Do we have to put all this aside, too?
For the credentials are everything crowd, the fact that Zero went to Ivy League schools and taught at the University of Chicago means he’s one of them!
If he ran a corner candy store, they’d sneer and laugh, because he probably went to a State school-like they sneer at the Sarahcuda!
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, obviously in a running gag with pants-crease fetishist David Brooks, declared Obama “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.”
Madison? Jefferson? Lincoln?
Upon reading what he said, I couldn’t help but blurt out,
“Michael Beschloss is probably the supidest guy ever to become a presidential historian.”
I’m not sure what “supidest” means. I meant “sTupidest.”
Speaking of dummies …
LOL. An edit feature would be nice, no? But it pretty silly to assert that Obama is the smartest president evah. Jefferson could speak 6 languages and could play the violin and read and write music. Those were his MINOR accomplishments. No one has ever written anything as beautiful as the Declaration of Independence in my opinion. He was also an inventor, as well as a politician and diplomat. Obama can’t even come close to matching, though few, if any Americans today could measure up.
Making Jefferson out to be some kind of prodigy?
Did Jefferson ever write two autobiographies in the span of three years before the age of 50?
Spoke six languages? Rote memorization. Did he ever actually create a language, like Austrian?
Declaration of Independence? It will be long forgotten even before the genius of his majesty’s coming Declaration of Interdependence is fully comprehended.
I won’t even mention Nobel Peace Prizes. Overdoing it is just not cricket.
Kidder.
P.S. I enjoyed your article!
“Did Jefferson ever write two autobiographies in the span of three years before the age of 50?”
No, but neither has any other President.
Jes’ keepin’ it real…
Wilson was a seriously smart duck, too. Look where that can go…
Thanks LHC! That’s quit a sense of humor you got there. I was LMBO!
One qualification for office ought not be overlooked: intent. It’s not enough to consider whether or not experience or education equip a candidate for a particular office, but rather, how the candidate’s philosophy of life might influence the implementation of that experience or education.
One can compensate for a lack of experience or education by consulting others who supply what the office-holder lacks, but the choice of particular consultants will be influenced by philosophy even more than competence.
Obama has revealed what happens when the media covers up a candidate’s philosophy. Romney makes us uneasy for the same reason: we doubt his intentions.
The nastiness of the Left’s reaction to Ann Romney’s comments disturbs me far more than anything Ann Romney brings to the conversation. Which reminds me; we ought also to consider whether a candidate has class, as lack thereof can damage the perception of America abroad, again, as our First Couple display in (Oops! Can’t say “spades!”)
I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about how the rest of the world views us. It is cowardly to put that consideration ahead of our own national interests.
Sorry, that was a bit harsh, I agree with everything else you said.
Victims are as essential to the Alinksy Left as—not to repeat myself—the proletariat is to Marxists.
Therefore, certain upwardly mobile leftists claim to base their careerism and social climbing on concern for victim groups.
Similarly, the cushiest position in today’s America is to be a Learjet liberal. You can enjoy the perquisites of wealth and status and the cachet of being a fighter for the downtrodden.
No… They will say its about economic status: that the rich cant understand the plight of the poor and arent allowed to speak for them.
But then they tell us people like Kennedy, Kerry, Reid and Pelosi speak for the poor. In which, if we ask what exempts these rich politicians, we get an answer about “enlightened” and “caring”. So then, what it comes down to really is nothing more than “their smarter than you”
Liberals – if your opinion matches theirs, you’re “qualified”… If it doesn’t, then you’re not qualified.
DocWahala, says Democrats dont genuinely care for the poor, they just tell us they do. And when Rome had a senate, they called the actors ‘hypocrites’
If you ever need an IRON-CLAD example of just how much concern Barackah has for poor, minority children…
look up Washington, DC voucher program.
Liberal female pundits with their dismissive straw women diatribes disqualify themselves from any discussion about women and their inherently solid gold worth in whatever role they undertake (except as liberal pundits who tarnish a women’s worth).
Liberal female pundits are most certainly qualified to be female professional wrestlers.
They can always depend on the standard lefty/pinko/prog apology:
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
Professor, I hear what you are saying. However, it is painfully obvious to me that the GOPe is exploiting this issue as a distraction to unite the party.
I am sorry but I do have a problem with this. Why should I come to the aid of Ann Romney when she is being attacked when moderates like her and her husband acted like eunuchs and did not come to the aid of Sarah Palin when she was accused of inciting the shooting in Arizona?
How will we ever get the GOPe to defend a conservative?
I’m sorry but I don’t do martyr very well.
Insanity is having the same behavior and expecting a different outcome. I can no longer follow blindly if past behavior has proven that the GOPe doesn’t have my back.
Last month when GHW Bush and Jeb spent a quiet little afternoon at the White House with the Marxist-in-chief spoke volumes to me. The GOPe doesn’t care that Obama is a Marxist. That’s unconscionable! How could they not? The GOPe is more concerned with the fact that they consider conservatives to be an embarrassment for stating that Obama is a Marxist. Now they desperately need conservatives to get on board to get their candidate over the finish line. I am not biting.
Ann Romney is on video stating that, “All our friends are Democrats.” Fine, now they are eating their own. I can do eunuch just as well as the moderates do.
Huh.
So, kinda ANTI-Voltaire.
We defend people from false, ideologically-driven narratives only if they are our “friends” by some measure.
Not my idea of Breitbartian conduct.
I agree with your sentiments, although I’m Anybody but Obama. This is a Romney machine versus Obama machine fight. What I do appreciate the conservative blogs and some of the talk shows doing, is using the attack on Ann Romney to continue to pound away at the ideology that seeks to force Americans to be obligated to the State. There are many families and women of modest or little means that do not choose to be obligated to the State. How their stories make it into the nation’s consciousness, I have no idea. Perhaps Ann Romney will start seeking out those stories. If the Romney machine leaves this about Ann Romney, it will backfire. The Obama machine talking point that President Obama has helped women through the Affordable Care Act will be another issue that Ann Romney, having suffered through cancer and with multiple sclerosis, will be watched carefully to see what advice she has to offer on affordable health care for women (since she offered advice to her husband on “economic issues”). That may not happen until around the time the Supreme Court rules in June. Beside the economy the fundamental issue to me is that has to be dealt with in the election is the Progressives goal to force obligation to the State through ObamaCare, without choice. That’s going to be a heavy lift for the Romney machine.
JRD +100 Likes.
You are quite correct, that this was all manufactured so to rally the troops behind the Romney’s.
Conservatives fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Way too much logic for the liberals. If they were to address your argument intellectually, prof, I do fear their heads would figuratively explode! Here is one fact-of-life that makes it so difficult to persuade true-believer libs, they subconsciously are aware of the meritless nature of their arguments. They DO NOT want their world-view challenged. The mere challenge of a rational, persuasive alternative to their dogma must be figuratively destroyed.
This is the impetus for their continuing attacks on the messengers of this competing philosophy; ALEC, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, “filthy liar” professor Jacobson, and Ann Romney.
Someone please tell me this is not the Hill the 2012 Presidential election is being fought upon. Talk about small ball.
I think I’ll find a cave to live in for the next four years. Maybe by 2016 the country will be ready to do something about the size and reach of the federal government (something other than keep growing it, that is)?
I have a hard time getting riled over one nobody’s opinion about Ann Romney that is based on a fact, that she hasn’t ever worked (according to some definitions of “work”.)
I fail to see how is this is even remotely on a par with the vile, personal, sexualized attacks such as those to which Palin and her family have been subjected, as well as numerous conservative women running for office.
After enduring Mitt Romney and Co.’s unrelenting vicious and false media campaigns against his opponents, particularly what he did here in Florida to Gingrich, this just doesn’t move me as an issue of moment.
I am open to be educated. What am I missing?
Seems to me that Romney’s attempt to pander to women by professing to consult his wife on women’s issues is lame. Given the professional women he has available to consult, his comment is absurd.
Go ahead and dis me again.
Addendum: it’s not about whether Ann Romney has struggled economically in life. Being female by itself is not a credential of expertise about what “women” think or want or need about anything. (Case in point, the all-female board of the National Organization of Women. Etc.)
“…professing to consult his wife on women’s issues is lame. Given the professional women he has available to consult, his comment is absurd.”
Hmmm… This whole deal was about Ann’s conversations with women on the campaign trail.
It WAS NOT about “professional women”…but female voters generally, and how the economy impacted them.
Who would a feller trust MORE with such questions than his own, trusted female balance?
Maybe you haven’t seen what’s gearing up in the background as this whole thing unfolds? Here’s a peek: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/O.G.%20Clifford
This is how it starts. It’s always some lessor news story, Remember, the attacks with Palin started with comments like “lipstick on a pig” and quickly devolved into t-shirts with the C-word. The left has been getting more and more hostile, more open in their overt sexist language, since this story broke. That’s the point of the story. Unleash the left’s sexism as a way to destroy a political asset. SOP for Obama all the way through his career, if you know enough about it. He attacks women relentlessly. He’s particularly effective at neutralizing conservative women, but he’ll attack his own if need be. THAT’S why it’s so important to push back, to expose the hypocrisy, and to kill or discredit left-feminism once and for all.
This is helpful. Thank you. (Rags, too.)
You’re most certainly welcome. Not everyone is aware, but once they are they can help. Thanks for keeping an open mind.
I’m trying, and I appreciate the patience. My negative feelings for Romney are exceeded by my horror of Obama, but defending anything Romney is still distasteful.
(Ann Romney isn’t my kind of woman. Other than riding horses, she doesn’t appear to have any interests or accomplishments.)
Sorry, I’m not a woman. I’m not qualified to opine on this subject. I am also not an illegal immigrant so I can’t opine about that either. I guess that silences everyone.
“Last month when GHW Bush and Jeb spent a quiet little afternoon at the White House with the Marxist-in-chief spoke volumes to me. The GOPe doesn’t care that Obama is a Marxist. That’s unconscionable! How could they not? The GOPe is more concerned with the fact that they consider conservatives to be an embarrassment for stating that Obama is a Marxist. Now they desperately need conservatives to get on board to get their candidate over the finish line. I am not biting.”
I’m glad you brought this issue up. I’m not at all sure that conservatives were paying attention like they should have.
The Bush family is all about “The New World Order.” There is a YouTube video with HW saying it.
Some of the Republican Party do follow lockstep with the Bush doctrine still, and that’s why Romney fits into their plan. Don’t be surprised if Romney picks Jeb Bush as his running mate. There was a big pow-wow between the Bush Family and Romney some time ago and that’s why we now have them pushing him to the White House.
Barbara Bush hates Sarah Palin and I think that’s one reason why she didn’t throw her hat into the ring this time.
Unless she does it at the convention in Tampa.
And it’s no accident that the GOP Convention is in Florida this year. It’s all about Jebbie in 2016. We’re going to be seeing lots of the Bushes and Cheney from here on out.
I find I need to keep explaining to my father that there are Republicans and then there are conservatives, and the Bushes are Republicans. As for Cheney, hell, I’d be happy to hear and see more of him. He shot somebody in the face, and the guy rightly apologized for being in the wrong place (which he was).
The Bushes, and their ilk, think that since they are on top now, when the New World Order comes and the dust settles, they will still be sitting in their posh digs. Have they met any Russian Aristocrats who survived that revolution? Once the US goes, where will the expatriate aristocrats go? Unless, of course, they confess to being members of the kleptocracy themselves. Somehow though, I seem to think the Marxist who lead the revolt will think the GOPEstablishment is bunch of useful idiots.
There’s one way to settle this… dueling credentials at dawn.
Hilary Rosen never thought a day in her life.
What I want to know is whether Hilary Rosen ever waited on tables or scraped the grill in some low rent diner – unless she did that she doesn’t know squat about the economic struggles of poor women. /s
It’s what I call “intellectual solipsism”, the idea that you have to be a member of group x to have an opinion about an issue that involves group x. But “liberals” (really, statists/leftists because I believe in classical liberalism) don’t really believe in their own solipsism, because if you *are* a member of group x and have a different opinion, it makes no difference.
I saw this somewhere on twitter: Dear women who like to tear down other women…you are the reason we don’t rule the world already.
I kind of agree.
Put aside, for the moment, the snotty and snide aspect of Hilary Rosen’s comment that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”
Speaking for myself, I’d be prouder of a wife who stayed home and successfully raised my five boys that I would of one who took a $300,000 per year no show, made-up job as part of a corrupt political pay off … but that’s just me.
only a woman who has struggled economically in life is qualified to speak about economic issues affecting women?
Because our first lady struggled so much throughout her life………:)
WooHoo, Rush talking about the Professor’s site, you’re movin’ on up sir.
Rush Limbaugh currently highlighting and discussing this post.
Onward and upward with the arts!
Links to Rush
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/04/16/maher_reignites_the_war_on_moms
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/04/16/why_stay_at_home_moms_threaten_the_left