Mitt Romney: "They brought us whole binders full of women"
Romney's debate anecdote, the response, and the fact it wasn't true.
By Martha Gill Published 17 October 2012 9:23
In last night's presidential debate Romney responded to a question about equal pay with an annecdote about how he went about recruiting women to his cabinet. This is what he said he did:
"I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women."
The transcript in full:
"An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.
And I... and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are... are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we... can't we find some... some women that are also qualified?"
And.. and so we... we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women."
Binders full of women. This is not how Ryan Gosling would do it:
(from bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com)
According to David Bernstein, it's not what Romney did either. Binders were involved, but Romney wasn't the one who requested them:
What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.
They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.
Bernstein also points out that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women " actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006."
But whether the annecdote is true or not, it's interesting that Romney automatically hits upon "women's groups" as the go-to place to find qualified women. Does he not know any himself?
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9 comments
Obam's gallactically stupid 2nd debate response to why gasoline prices have doubled on his 4 year watch:
"Think about what governor Romney just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney's now promoting. So, it's conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.
In other words, bringing down gas prices by drilling creates economic recession. That was Obama’s argument. Does anyone think this president understands basic economics?
Not even qualified for Dogcatcher...
what astounds me is that Americans appear on the whole quite relaxed about Romney providing fiction of such magnitude in a Presidential debate. the true sequence of events is completely different from the fantasy Romney stated on camera to his nation about how these binders full of women were acquired by him and his team. he plain lied, there is no way to define this in any other way.
and Ryan is no better, saying on the record that he ran a marathon in under 3 hours. and pretending to be helping to clean up at a soup kitchen by washing alreay clean items, well after the poor and needy have gone home. no hint of irony either as it's exactly the type of place Ryan would refuse to fund.
you could not make this stuff up....
yet, and yet, despite such blatant transparent lies, that can be fact checked in moments, Romney & Ryan lie in your face. i can only conclude that Americans are just too stupid to comprehend what is happening in full view.
Yes, well, our boy Mitt is one scary character.
As for attention deficit disorder: when Obama pointed out infrastructure ( railroads, highways, streets, canals, etc) benefitted business,which did not built it, the republicans hollered and jeered he had said business-owners had not built their own businesses--which was a perfectly devious misinterpretation of what had actually been said.
Mitt just continues this childish but dangerous game. In fact, his attention is sharply tuned to this warping of reality.
Martin Amis recently opined in a CBC (Toronto) interview that in Europe perhaps a few hundred people would vote for Romney. And he isn't far wrong. The U.S. however is full of nutters, religious and otherwise.
Yes, well, our boy Mitt is one scary character.
As for attention deficit disorder: when Obama pointed out infrastructure ( railroads, highways, streets, canals, etc) benefitted business,which did not built it, the republicans hollered and jeered he had said business-owners had not built their own businesses--which was a perfectly devious misinterpretation of what had actually been said.
Mitt just continues this childish but dangerous game. In fact, his attention is sharply tuned to this warping of reality.
Martin Amis recently opined in a CBC (Toronto) interview that in Europe perhaps a few hundred people would vote for Romney. And he isn't far wrong.
I read the comments on twitter about Romney's statement of getting binders with women's resumes and I came to the conclusion that the people who were tweeting had to be ADD. You see their brains only registered the first part of Romney's statement. The second part was that from the binders he was able to encourage qualified women to apply for jobs in his administration. And the third part was as a result it was found in a survey that his administration had more women working for him than any other governor in the other 49 states. I'm not putting the people down, I just happen to have a child who is ADD and I just know I have to repeat my instructions, step by step to make sure she hears the entire message.
I read the comments on twitter about Romney's statement of getting binders with women's resumes and I came to the conclusion that the people who were tweeting had to be ADD. You see their brains only registered the first part of Romney's statement. The second part was that from the binders he was able to encourage qualified women to apply for jobs in his administration. And the third part was as a result it was found in a survey that his administration had more women working for him than any other governor in the other 49 states. I'm not putting the people down, I just happen to have a child who is ADD and I just know I have to repeat my instructions, step by step to make sure she hears the entire message.
ffs the man is a Mormon, which by definition means he views women as 2nd class to men.
here are just a few examples of the doctrine strictly adhered to be Romney;
- Mormon women have absolutely no power in the LDS church.
- No woman can be a mission president, bishop, stake president, or general authority, or hold any ecclesiastical office with power over a man.
- Mormon women cannot receive ecclesiastical forgiveness from other women. Only a man can grant forgiveness on behalf of God and "his" church.
- All women's organizations in Mormonism are "auxiliaries" with no control over their own funding or selection of leaders.
(this list goes on btw)
of course Romney will not force his religious views on non-Mormons, no honestly he won't, he will draw a line in the sand and never cross it. yeah rrrright....to a Mormon their Church is the ultimate authority ranking wayyy over that of public office functions such as POTUS.
Obama's 20 year long pastor would call you a "white devil", deserving to be put down...so, what's your beef again?
.