Mitt Romney's 'Binder Full of Women'
Last night, after battling Los Angeles traffic, I met my girlfriend at her house, along with her mom and eight-week old son. Funny thing about babies, they respond to voices and Emanuel drifted right off to sleep every time President Barack Obama spoke during the second presidential debate but Mitt "Mittens" Romney? The Republican woke up the baby every time and I'm thinking it's because Mittens ditched his aggressiveness from the first debate and became shrill.Watching the first debate a few weeks ago, I didn't want to admit it to myself but Romney won because of the President's sheer silence on most talking points. However, it seems that Mac Mittens' advisors encouraged him to do the same thing on Tuesday night but it back-fired. Not only in terms of Romney's attempts to snipe and cut off the President but also his inability to answer a straight question. For example, and you can read the full transcripts from the debate here, but my eyes began to glaze over after Romney reponded to the very first question. How is it possible that I immediately had no idea what he was talking about?The issues of women finally arose in this debate, and not under the guise of 'As a Catholic, what do you think America should do with vaginas?' I see you Martha Raddatz. This time, debate moderator and CNN host Candy Crowley — did you see her hair and snatched eyebrows? I mean ... — asked about, or had someone else inquire after equal pay for women. Do you know what Mittens said? When he was at Bain Capital, his former place of employment that we all know about, he received binders full of women (there's a tumblr, ya'll) to consider hiring from women's groups. Because you know, women are so delicate that they can't navigate a simple job application process. It's much too complicated so we had to go find them! What that really meant is 'I am part of such a boys' club that we don't allow women entry into our social and thereby work group so we don't know any women.'Mittens, you're killing me.Fortunately, Obama responded by saying that he believed women should receive equal pay for equal work and added that we should also be able to have access to contraception and decide what to do with our own vaginas. He even brought up Mittens' attempt to defund Planned Parenthood after the Massachusetts governor said something to the effect of 'I believe women should have access to contraception' and I threw one of Emanuel's bottles at the television.Ultimately, Obama encouraged me and my girlfriend because he actually strongly responded to both the questions and Mittens' attack attempts. Conversely, Romney made me dislike him even more. I didn't think he was the warmest piece of toast in the oven — Get it? Because he's boring? — but I really saw the negative effects of his privilege, disregard for women and other people last night as he sniped away at Crowley and talked over her attempts to keep the exchange on time. Obama spoke over her once or twice and I wasn't impressed with that either. Still, I'm glad that the President spoke up firmly last night on everything from the Benghazi attacks to high gas prices, considering the election (and my birthday, will I get a black president as a gift again this time?) is three weeks out. We shall see.ps. And to the black guy, Michael "Mike" Jones, who essentially asked "Hey Barack, why is everything so expensive, man?" FOH.UPDATE: Mitt Romney 'Binders Full Of Women' Claim Misleads