Let Them Eat Cake…Ann Romney to the working moms of America

Just when you thought the woman who had an entire upscale store close down for four hours so she could go shopping in complete privacy and not have to deal with the riffraff (er, members of her own class, ironically) couldn’t stick any more of her foot in her mouth, Ann Romney has managed to put both feet completely in her mouth, after first stretching them to about the size of Louisville sluggers.

Ann Romney, the FLOTUS wannabe who earlier on forcibly elicited apologies from Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen (because Hilary dared to boldly make a completely truthful statement, that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life) has now gone on to attack the same “moms” she claimed were under attack by Hilary Rosen.

She did so with this statement, “I love the fact that there are women out there who don't have a choice, and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids.”

Just a tad insensitive, eh?  Oh, yeah, you don’t have a choice.  But you know, I do!  I stayed at home with my kids, but I didn’t really do anything, yet I credited myself with doing what you ladies do all the time!

To back up for a second, re: the Hilary Rosen comment, I would have grudgingly given Ann props for taking, you know, the truthful way out.  Matter of fact, the Romney invention, the “war on moms,” instead went the entirely other direction…not only the non-truthful way out, but actually, the denial way.

The fact is that, first, Ann Romney knows she can’t connect with the average working mom.  Ann Romney can’t even connect with the average stay at home mom, though that’s what she claims to have been.

The problem is that the average SAHM doesn’t have staffs of nannies and maids and cooks, butlers, gardeners and chauffeurs, oh, my!

So rather than take the truthful way, to actually admit that, no, she never did work a day in her life, didn’t have to change poopy diapers, wipe snotty noses or clean spit-up and instead got to enjoy her children when they were good and pristine and fun, instead, she took umbrage, boasting about how “hard” she worked—after all, she raised five boys!  Alone, to hear Ann talk about it.  And what “hard work” that was, to order the staff around every day, pick the dinner menus, even pick which of five houses (one for each boy?) they would live in that particular day!

The Romneys cannot relate the tiniest bit to average Americans, much less working moms.  This wasn’t and isn’t the “war on moms,” it was and is the war on truth.  It’s a game of not being able to dazzle ’em with brilliance, so instead, baffle ’em with bullshit.

Had nobody looked closely at Ann’s claims, she may have indeed gotten away with it.  But with Americans feeling the pinch to their wallets and worried about, you know, those mundane, everyday things, such as keeping food on the table and roofs over their families’ heads, reading about Ann’s dressage horses costing at least one million dollars apiece failed to elicit the proper reaction from those struggling families.  Instead of falling for the alleged “war on moms,” it became patently obvious just how entirely clueless Ann Romney truly is.  We already knew this about Mitt, of course, with his insensitive remarks, geared to make him look like “just plain folk” when he’s anything but; however, for Ann to pick up the same mantra even before uttering the aforementioned elitist remark, rather than painting a picture of sympathetic, empathetic people who are willing to actually look at what’s going on outside of their bubble, they instead showed themselves for what they truly are: elitist, out of touch rich folk, who really don’t give a rat’s ass about anything but the biggest reward they can buy think of for themselves…the top political office in the US.

The thing Ann and Mitt Romney still have yet to figure out with all of the campaigns and the money spending (wow, fiscally, responsibly conservative, eh, Mitt?!  Spend tons of money to talk about how you want to be elected so you won’t spend money!) and the super PACs is exactly what is creating these huge roadblocks in what would otherwise be a pretty smooth campaign.  Mitt and Ann Romney simply aren’t genuine.  And people aren’t stupid.  They know this.

Case in point: when Hilary Rosen made her statement and the far right went utterly nuts over this “insensitive” comment, Ann Romney could have stated her case in a much kinder, gentler and genuine way.  Rather than attacking Hilary and demanding an apology, which turned out more like a truck driver or a dock worker crushing that beer can on his head to prove his machismo, that would have been to simply admit the truth.

I realize this is an anathema to the Republican party.  But the Republican party still has yet to get the message that what they’re doing, for the most part, isn’t working.  The old saying still holds, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”  The Republicans are determined to take a sledgehammer to the flies—the citizens—and ram home the point of their alleged superiority, not with anything genteel or genuine, but with that sledgehammer.  If they don’t agree, whack them painfully a few times until they’re forced to admit You Are God, You Are Right, Everyone Else Is Crap, They Are Crap.

Ann Romney would have been better served with the high road.  Rather than shoving her elitism in the face of moms who don’t enjoy the luxury of staying home with the kids and having nannies, maids, cooks and butlers (oh my!) to take care of the icky, tedious, dull and just plain hard work tasks during the short periods of time they can be home, Ann Romney could have turned the Hilary comment to her advantage, by simply admitting, “You know what, folks?  Hilary is absolutely right.  I’ve been blessed.  I’ve never worked a day in my life.  I don’t know what it’s like to change poopy diapers, because someone always did it for me.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care.  I do care.  I care about the women who have to work outside of the home and miss the quality time they should have with their children, that time I was blessed to have, sans the chores and the hard work a mom without money has to do.  I care about the single moms who take two jobs, one to pay for day care so they can work the other job, in order to support their families.  Hilary is right; I can’t relate.  And with your help, I can learn.  I want to learn.  I want to see what people go through in their everyday lives, to understand working moms, who aren’t privileged as I am.”

Unfortunately, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so that reaction is out; it’s the road not taken.  Ann Romney has already cried for “justice” from Rosen’s comment and painted herself as the pretend “victim,” which instead showed her for the elitist snob she truly is.  Which is ironic, because Mitt actually implied President Obama was a snob, because he “spent too much time at Harvard University,” when Ann is the one who did the elitist thing, rubbing her snobbery in the faces of working moms everywhere.  Obama?  He’s proof you can work hard and make it, despite financial disadvantages.  And that’s supposed to be what the Republican party likes, hard work, but when shown the fine examples of Michelle and Barack Obama, that’s too “elitist.”

The elite like the Romneys have yet to figure out that no matter what, they can’t paint themselves as “just plain folk,” while painting the down-to-earth as elitist snobs.  Instead, they try, that blatant attempt fools no one, and they instead stick out like sore thumbs.

As I write this, I’m reminded of the late Princess Diana, who would take her children out into the real world and show them how people who weren’t so privileged lived.  Can you picture Ann Romney doing this with her kids?  I sure can’t.  Ann Romney, who grew up wealthy herself, obviously never bothered teaching her kids (or learning a little something herself) about how other people live, instead deciding the poor are simply sitting on hefty bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands (comprised of those generous government handouts, of course), so what’s the big problem with the poor writing a check or waving a credit card for whatever they need?  There’s got to be a reason Mitt Romney “isn’t concerned” about the very poor, and that’s got to be it, those hidden assets that everyone obviously has.

That’s the key.  To the Romneys, everyone must be as wealthy as they are, and the poor are simply pretending to be poor, because welfare obviously pays each recipient twenty billion dollars a year or more.

They can’t begin to wrap their minds around the utter struggle of grinding poverty, to have a tiny government check that doesn’t stretch enough, which is considered a “handout,” so shame on you for taking it, even though you need it far more than the president of ExxonMobil who gets billions of taxpayer dollars in handouts each year, not to mention that you pay for it out of your tax dollars, taxed at a higher percentage to you than the president of ExxonMobil, if he pays taxes at all, that is.  And the president of ExxonMobil isn't shamed or even ashamed to take said money...he just takes it, as if it's his “right,” but if you're poor, that measly “handout” of money you paid into the system is something where you should be highly ashamed.

Undoubtedly, the Romneys would easily be able to identify with the struggles of the president of ExxonMobil, though.  After all, why should he have to slum it on such a paltry amount of government handouts taxpayer dollars free money?!  Money definitely grows on taxpayer-dollar-subsidized trees for big oil, big pharma and any other government-subsidized lobbying entity, but when it goes to poor people who would otherwise be living on the street if not for a tiny bit of money here and there, those welfare queens are just totally irresponsible jerks looking for a handout.

The even bigger irony in the whole Mitt & Ann Romney elitist act is this: Mitt Romney is the ultra rich candidate who begs for donations to squander billions to prove how he won’t spend money if elected President.

If that alone doesn’t say “Let them eat cake” even more than Ann Romney’s gleeful comments of how she’s so glad poor moms must work, when Ann herself didn’t have to work to raise her own kids, let alone have to work outside of the home, then I don’t know what does.