Ann Romney is the mother of 5 boys, 16 grandchildren, wife of 43 years, and a cancer survivor currently battling multiple sclerosis. Mitt met Ann when he was a Cub Scout and in the ever-optimistic parlance of the liberal media, this is the “first marriage” for each of them.

This is widely known, including by Hilary Rosen. She is an Obama operative, Democrat strategist, gay / lesbian / bisexual / transgender activist, feminist and very frequent guest of the White House. In an unguarded moment, she spoke frankly on CNN about Ann Romney in her role as a homemaker (translation: lacking life experience) and mother of a large family (translation: failure to use contraception or avail oneself of “abortion services”; disregard for the environment). On this occasion, Ms. Rosen spoke specifically of Mitt’s respect for his wife’s counsel saying “guess what, his wife has never actually worked a day in her life.” Note that Ms. Rosen is described as a “communications specialist” and managing director for a strategic communications firm – this was an intentional statement.

This is how liberal feminists honestly view mothers and their traditional (translation: pathetic / unimaginative) lifestyle. It is understood. It is not supposed to be admitted in public, particularly on the record:

Naturally this distracts from the narrative, ironically disclaimed in this interview, that it is the other party who disrespects women and is waging war on them. (BTW, that other political party reportedly wants to outlaw contraception and deny women health services at the bidding of the Catholic Church, undoubtedly in their effort to return women to the dark ages.)

In damage control mode, the White House has forgotten how many times Ms. Rosen has been their guest (35) and made her apologize. She did, sort of, explaining that she “didn’t mean it personally” and that “this is going to be an ugly campaign season.” For his part, Obama’s campaign quickly found some nice things for him to say about mothers.

Media watchdog group NewsBusters noted that not everyone thinks an apology is warranted:

Back up the bus! After bouncing Hilary Rosen beneath the Greyhound, President Obama and friends might have to throw it in reverse again over the person of key Dem coalition member Terry O’Neill. The NOW president suggested to Ed Schultz tonight that Ann Romney, along with Mitt, lacks “life experience” and “imagination” needed to understand most Americans.

For good measure, in the very same segment Dem congresswoman Maxine Waters called the Republican candidate for president Mitt “Rot-ney.” Classy bunch! View the video after the jump.

Watch O’Neill and Waters at work.

TERRY O’NEILL: What would we be saying if Hillary Clinton [sic] had said this: that Ann Romney has never, has not worked for pay outside the home a day in her life? That’s my understanding that’s an accurate statement, and that raises the exact issue that Hilary Rosen was trying to get to, which is do Mr. & Mrs. Romney have the kind of life experience and if not, the imagination, to really understand what most American families are going through right now? I think that that was what Hilary was getting out, and so she left out the words “for pay outside the home.”

. . .

MAXINE WATERS: The Republicans have now raised this issue in this campaign in ways that young women now understand: oh my goodness, we’re at risk! We have taken two steps forward, and this administration, under Mitt Rot-ney, would take us backwards.

The referenced video is in their post: NOW Prez: Ann Romney Lacks ‘Life Experience’ And ‘Imagination’. Typical MSNBC fare.

What I do not understand are the poll numbers showing support for Obama among women. Interviews show that many believe he has their interests at heart and his political opponents do not. Who are these women? The women I know (family, friends, neighbors, parishioners, etc.) are not that gullible and resent the administration’s demeaning attempts at manipulation.

I wonder how many women actually identify with the administration’s lesbian / bisexual / transgender / pro-abortion / anti-family / anti-religion values vs. traditional American ones. How many are comfortable with the repercussions soaring federal debt will have on their children? I just don’t get it.

UPDATE – additional Catholic reaction:

• Join the Million Bon-Bon March
• Lib Radio Host: “Scum, Nazi Pope.”
• ‘Mommy Wars’ is Class Warfare in Disguise
• ‘Working Mothers’ is Redundant

St. Peter’s List published an interesting piece on Sunday by Father John Higgins. It fit well with that day’s RCIA scrutinies gospel reading on the raising of Lazarus (John 11). It is a story of death and life, of miracles and in this case, a “bit part” for a brown scapular.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good BBQ with friends? When I was asked to a young couple’s home for a Young Adult Ministry Home Mass and BBQ I packed my Mass kit and off I went. I arrived about 6:00 pm with a hearty appetite and was greeted by about 15 young people. Then the phone rang and everything changed. I had to drive about 10 miles to a hospital where there was an emergency call.

I drove quickly, thinking that the nurse in charge of the ER, Anne, would be waiting for me. I knew her and her husband and children from the parish. When I walked in I could see paramedics at the foot of the only occupied gurney there, so I hurried and walked in. “Sorry, Fr. John, you’re too late. He’s gone.” Anne said, smiling. She had a lot of compassion, but also understood that I’d come as fast as I could. They were removing wires from an older man. I noticed that he was wearing a Brown Scapular, one of the old cloth ones. I reached and said “He’s wearing an old fashioned Scapular.” When I touched it there was a beep from a monitor, then another. The nurse, Anne, said “What did you do?” I said “Nothing!” She and another nurse jumped to work, reconnecting wires and calling for help. The Paramedics stood with their jaws dropped. The patient opened his eyes and said (in an Irish accent) “Oh, good, Father. I’ve been waiting for you. I want to go to Confession.” I nearly fell over. I’d done nothing but seen and touched his Scapular. The next thing I knew they were working on him. He didn’t get to go to Confession, but I gave him an emergency absolution as they worked. One of the Paramedics asked if I was OK and sat me in a chair.

A couple of weeks later the man came to me for Confession and told me that the doctor couldn’t figure out what happened and had to tear up the Death Certificate he’d already started to fill out. The Paramedics had come to see him in the hospital and shown him their notes. At the bottom of the page they’d written the time and place of his death and then in big bold letters had added “BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE BY GOD.”

Miracles still happen. And no, I didn’t do it. It just happened according to God’s will. Why does He intervene in some cases and not in others? I really don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet. But I do know that God has worked miracles in my life, the most important for me not being what He did for someone else, but what He has done over and over to bring me back from sin and death, through the Sacraments into His Covenant Relationship.

That man still had to die a natural death to be raised from the dead into eternal life. The resurrection Jesus offers all of us is eternal too. And that’s what we look forward to at Easter.

This man, like Lazarus, will one day die and not be brought back to continue this life. Like Lazarus, it was not God’s will that it be on the day Fr. Higgins was called. When that day and hour comes for him and for all of us, eternal life through the resurrection of our Lord is ours – if we accept it now.

Recently, House Democrats staged a “show hearing” in support of President Obama’s war on religion. At the event, a 23 30 year-old typical female student “reproductive justice” radical bemoaned the $3,000 cost to keep her well stocked with contraceptives during her law school studies. According to some calculations, that would buy enough condoms to enable this unmarried woman to (on average) engage in “protected sex” 7 times daily.

Due to inappropriate name calling on the part of a conservative commentator, the woman’s “testimony” has received much more attention than it otherwise would have. President Obama, took time away from addressing the country’s crushing deficit (an all-time record $220 BILLION for February ALONE – 75 million times this woman’s total contraception costs) to call her and check that she is okay. According to the aggrieved woman, “he said to tell my parents that [they] should be proud”. It was unclear what her parents should be proud of.

It is interesting to note that this person attends graduate school at the Jesuit run Georgetown Law School. Not surprisingly, their president offered glowing praise for the woman saying “this expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people.” Cardinal Wuerl felt that there were other lessons that he could have drawn from this.

Much ink has been spilled on this debacle. The mainstream media, as always, has done its job presenting this woman as a victim of religious extremists – taking their cues from the Obama administration (including Hillary Clinton). The best analysis comes from Robert Yates in his piece for Crisis Magazine:

I recently had a chance to take a careful look at the testimony of Sandra Fluke before the House Democrats. What I saw disturbed me greatly, and not simply because I am a Catholic who strenuously opposes Obama’s assault on religious liberty. There are a number of other assumptions at work in the thinking of Ms. Fluke and all who share her worldview that cannot go unaddressed. Some of them might be identified by pointing out that this is not, as was initially reported, a relatively innocent 23-year old female law student, but rather a 30 year-old hardened feminist activist who enrolled at Georgetown with a mission to challenge its contraception coverage policies. Others are more subtle.

The first assumption is that ObamaCare itself is irrevocably settled law. The only acceptable debate parameters are the specific provisions and applications of the law, while the question of its inherent validity, legality or practicality is now resolved. It causes one to wonder if the contraception mandate itself, which was audacious and perhaps irrational from the standpoint of electoral politics, was a calculated ploy to shift the debate. Once we begin debating the specific applications of ObamaCare, we have implicitly accepted ObamaCare. The resistance to the general idea is dulled and weakened, if not entirely forgotten.

If that weren’t bad enough, however, it also becomes clear through Ms. Fluke’s testimony that we live in different moral universes that appear to be entirely incompatible. To read the first part of her testimony, much of which focuses on the hardships allegedly endured due to a lack of contraception coverage, you would think someone abducted her and these women from their homes, put them in shackles, and shipped them to Georgetown in crates against their will. Or that a cruel society forced them, to use her words, “to pick between a quality education and our health.”

That her words might be seen as such was anticipated by Ms. Fluke, the prepared and professional activist. In response to the crazy notion that she and other women ought to have expected that a Catholic university did not cover contraception, she replies near the end of her testimony that “we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success.” One may easily reply that women are treated equally: men don’t have access to contraception coverage at Georgetown either. Georgetown will not pay for a vasectomy or a year’s supply of condoms for a male student, and so it isn’t reasonable to expect it to pay for a female student’s birth control pills. Since when were women they only people who might want to use contraception”

It seems tiresome to point out that a privately-run institution has absolutely no obligation to provide specific goods and services to anyone, and that there are countless alternatives for those who want to attend a university that provides them with the specific coverage they would like. If, as Ms. Fluke contends, 94% of the students disagree with the Georgetown policy, then eventually the forces of supply and demand would determine the fate of the university; most people would simply choose a different school, and Georgetown would either change its policy or close its doors. Faced with a plethora of choices, options, freedoms, and liberties laid out like a buffet before them as no people in the history of human civilization have ever enjoyed, however, Mrs. Fluke portrays these women as the helpless victims of injustice. It is quite simply an outrageous lie.

Ms. Fluke actually presented a rather long list of what she and her cohorts did and did not expect, and they all amount to this: we expected to be given exactly what we demanded, immediately, without reservations and without any consideration whatsoever for the consciences or concerns of anyone else.

Yates goes on to say “we are all caught up in the legal aspects of this controversy, but if we consider the implications of these aggressive demands, something more disconcerting emerges.” He continues with more insightful points. Highly recommended – see Addressing Ms. Fluke.

I also recommend the Wall Street Journal‘s Sandra Fluke’s Amazing Testimony and Matt Barber’s Limbaugh and the, um, Lady.

There is a significant effort running in the mainstream media to obfuscate the truth. The truth is Obama’s HHS mandate crushes freedom of religion by forcing not only our laity, but charities, hospitals, schools, universities and other faith-based organizations to fund the grave evils of abortion (through abortifacients) and sterilization. There are no applicable exceptions (absolutely none).

That is a rough narrative, too difficult to report without making the administration look bad (which no one cares about) and loosing votes (which they do). So, the media has changed the narrative. “It is all about contraceptives!” “The Catholic bishops do not want you to have access to the pill!!!”

When many people hear that, they will conclude it is no big deal – including most Catholics. Many will look no further, having been successfully misled by the media. It is an ingenious ploy that we must not allow to succeed. Here it is in action:

The piece also features a White House spokesman, saying “tough beans” (listen very carefully to what he says) which CNN spins into an “offer of compromise.” There is no such offer and even if there were, we can not compromise on the truth of our faith. Millions will see that one piece and hundreds or thousands more reports just like it. Please, do not let them frame this naked attack on religious freedom that way. The truth is:

Why should you be staunchly opposed to this aggression against the American people?

• Everyone: it is a direct, unprecedented attack on a fundamental freedom (the very first in the Bill of Rights)
• Everyone: it is a further encroachment of government against your liberty, removing your freedom of choice and abridging your rights
• Religious: it forces the will of God into second place behind the will of secular government
• Religious: you fund and promote the culture of death; there is no opt-out

You can stop reading now, unless you are interested in the 2nd big lie that is.

The Obama administration’s attack on fundamental religious freedom raises the issue of contraceptives. Fine, maybe this is an opportunity for God to bring good from evil. Odds are that you, dear reader, use birth control. I am not judging you and know that you have your reasons. This stuff costs money and Obama is offering you a free pony (or so you think, you poor misled soul). You may support Church teaching in most areas, but think that “they” got it wrong on this point.

Let me offer a counter point from a secular source: Business Insider. Of all places, this is not one you would expect to care what the Church thinks – and they don’t. Yet, they look at the facts with integrity and surprise themselves!

Painting the Catholic Church as “out of touch” is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church’s stance against contraception.

Many people, (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn’t just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or “out-dated.” C’mon! It’s the 21st century, they say! Don’t they SEE that it’s STUPID, they scream.

Here’s the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world’s biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It’s given us some of the world’s greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it’s not that they’re a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.

So, what’s going on?

The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That’s it. But it’s pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it’s probably never been as salient as today.

Today’s injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:

1. General lowering of moral standards
2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
4. Government coercion in reproductive matters.

Does that sound familiar?

Because it sure sounds like what’s been happening for the past 40 years.

As George Akerloff wrote in Slate over a decade ago,

By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.

Instead of two parents being responsible for the children they conceive, an expectation that was held up by social norms and by the law, we now take it for granted that neither parent is necessarily responsible for their children. Men are now considered to be fulfilling their duties merely by paying court-ordered child-support. That’s a pretty dramatic lowering of standards for “fatherhood.”

Read the whole article: Time To Admit It: The Church Has Always Been Right On Birth Control. There is more and it is surprising considering the source.

Another good article on “the big lie” (mainstream media changing the narrative to something they can successfully defend) comes from Kathleen Parker at North County Times. Her piece is: This isn’t about The Pill.