Festival of umbrage

Political candidates, as everyone knows, are prone to gaffes. It’s the near-inevitable outcome of having to talk so much.

Just ask Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has been the leading manufacturer of clunkers in recent months. He likes “being able to fire people.” He’s “not concerned about the very poor.” And so on. But Romney, trailing by 18 points among female voters in battleground states, got a gift from the cable news gods last week when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen declared on CNN that Romney’s wife had “never worked a day in her life” — and was therefore not qualified to advise her husband on women's issues. Ann Romney, who turned 63 on Monday, described the criticism as “my early birthday present.”

Faster than you can say “mommy wars,” Rosen’s clumsy comment touched off a predictable festival of umbrage. Partisans on both sides hyperventilated. Rosen apologized, as well she should have. Her snarky implication that stay-at- home mothers don't “work” was insulting and wrong. Of course they do; raising children is one of the hardest jobs any adult can do.

Nonetheless, almost everything everyone else said was right.

Ann Romney is, in fact, married to a wealthy man and has not had to work outside the home, as many mothers of lesser means must do in addition to raising their kids. Raising five boys “was hard work,” she tweeted. Undoubtedly true.

“Every mother works hard,” Michelle Obama tweeted. Also true. People should respect other people’s decisions about parenting. Undeniably so. What new did we learn from all this? Nothing. Like a lot of the most heated exchanges in this long presidential campaign (still seven months from Election Day), this was long on gotcha and faux dudgeon and short on meaningful policy debate. Moms work hard. They make their individual choices based on their circumstances and priorities. Now can we move on?