by James Holm, Senior Producer
In April, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen started a firestorm when she said Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.”
President Obama and Vice President Biden immediately condemned Rosen’s comments. And the Romneys used Rosen’s quote to paint Democrats as anti-working mom for weeks.
Now, Mitt Romney has given brand new definition to which kind of stay at home mothers deserve respect. In a pre-taped interview that aired on Bill Bennett’s right-wing radio show today, Romney opened up a another can of worms in his fraudulent welfare attack on the Obama administration.
Bennett lobbed a class C slow pitch softball at Romney by saying “let’s talk about welfare. You know a lot of us worked very hard on this ’96’ act, which was a great act of bi-partisanship. It really changed something the American people wanted, and now it’s being unilaterally undone by the president.”
Romney responded by saying this was a major step backward. After a minute of pushing an attack against President Obama that even Newt Gingrich is calling untrue, Romney started talking about a woman he met on a rope line.
Romney explained, “she said how about the people who have children at home and don’t want to work?”
Romney responded by saying “well, you know we have to work. The idea that were going to have a citizenry that raises families but doesn’t work and counts on the government to pay for the nurturing of their children and for the support of the adults, that is just not something that can build the kind of society that is uplifting to the individual a and strengthening to the nation.”
This is not the first time Romney has said poor mothers need to work outside the home. Earlier this year, msnbc’s UP with Chris Hayes show unearthed a video of Romney in Manchester, New Hampshire, telling voters “even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work.” So just to be clear, if your rich, Mitt Romney believes being a stay at home mother is honorable. If your poor, mothers “have to work” outside the home to deserve the same respect.
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