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Posted by on Oct 17, 2012 in Blog, Politics | 1 comment

Binders Full of Women?

Binders Full of Women

 

It was priceless.

A comedian’s dream.

A pundits paradise.

And quite possibly the single four-word phrase that might torpedo Mitt Romney’s last chance to win the U.S. Presidency.

 

In last night’s presidential debate, Romney was asked in a town hall format about how his presumptive administration might provide and protect equal opportunities and pay for women.

For veteran politicians, these are pretty standard run-of-the-mill questions that have been asked numerous times by the public and media alike, which are easy to address.  They are political softballs, tailor-made to be smacked out to the park by any savvy candidate.

In his rambling two-minute answer, Romney alluded to his first few days as Governor of Massachusetts, when he was eager to staff several key executive vacancies in his new administration.  No doubt, Romney intended to demonstrate a commitment to equal opportunity and pay for women.  Instead, he pulled back a symbolic curtain of sorts, unmasking himself to be anything other than an equal opportunity “Oz” in the increasingly bubble-prone Mitt Fantasyland.

Indeed, this moment was not simply a gaffe or a poor choice of words.  All politicians make mistakes out on the stump.  It’s impossible to go through months or years on the campaign trail, make thousands of speeches, and not experience a few embarrassing moments.

But this moment wasn’t as embarrassing as it was — revealing.

It revealed a great deal about the character of a Gordon Gekko-style corporate raider who is suspected by many of us to be out of touch and feared as a Wall Street insider incapable of understanding middle-class needs and common working people.

Picture the management style of a man who takes elected office and then desperately commands that his staff underlings scurry around, producing “binders” full of the names and resumes of presumably capable women.  Shouldn’t Gov. Romney’s previous decades spent as a business executive, as head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, as a major political candidate in a U.S. Senate race as well as a former Presidential candidate have produced more than enough examples of capable women to choose from in his new administration?

Moreover, the notion that a special stack of “binders” would be necessary is not just puzzling.  It’s patronizing.  Apparently, women are not treated as equals in a Romney management team.  Why else would he need to go out of his way to produce a talent pool cataloged by sex in “binders.”

Then, what about all the men who were applying for those same jobs?  Were they listed in binders too?  Were they ignored simply because they were men?  And if those men weren’t sufficiently qualified, why was it necessary to hustle the staff to go out and come up with a stack of new names who were presumably included in the job candidate pool for absolutely no other reason than their gender?  Isn’t this a form of reverse sex discrimination?

What next?  If the unthinkable happens and Romney gets elected, is he going to parse through Binders full of Blacks?  Binders full of Latinos?  Binders full of red-haired Protestants?  I ask you, Gov. Romney — is this the way to pick the dedicated public officials who will carry out your vision of a new America?

“Binders full of women.”  Haunting words.  Revealing words.

The bottom line is — from listening to the incessant Republican lies and disinformation for most of the past year not only about President Obama but about themselves, there was apparently a lot more on Governor Romney’s desk than just “binders full of women.”  There were also a lot of binders full of bullshit.

Then again, if there’s a binder open on the Romney campaign trail right now, it’s probably titled “Damage Control.”

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