Most critics agree that Ann Romney’s speech tonight was simply exquisite. Well, except for Juan Williams, who tried his best to carry the Democratic Party’s water, but just ended up spilling all over himself.
As part of a FOX News panel commenting on the night’s speeches, Williams noted that Ann Romney “looks like a corporate wife”. When asked to define what a corporate wife means, he further digs himself into a hole:
“What does it mean? It looks like a woman whose husband takes care of her, and she's been very lucky and blessed in this life.”
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To be perfectly literal, if he’s speaking strictly about her appearance (he did say “looks”), that’s ridiculous. This is probably the most important speech of her life, and one of the most important speeches of her husband’s career. Did Williams expect her to show up sans makeup in yoga pants and hair in a pony tail?
But, what Williams was really getting at was that he doesn’t believe that Ann Romney can identify with the average woman in America because her life has been so “charmed”.
Ann Romney’s life hasn’t been exactly problem-free. Raising five children – let alone five boys – sounds like an incredibly daunting task. But, more seriously, this is a woman who has not just survived one of the top killers of women, breast cancer, but also is dealing with a chronic illness, multiple sclerosis.
Approximately one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, according to the National Cancer Institute. But, each woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer is a daughter, mother, wife, sister or friend, so nearly all women in the United States have been impacted by the growing threat of breast cancer. Further, in the United States, there are estimated to be 400,000 people with MS, according to the National MS Society, and women are two to three times more likely to develop the debilitating disease.
Despite these challenges, Ann Romney would probably be the first to admit that her life is blessed. But, every woman has her own “crosses to bear” so to speak. As she said this evening, every woman knows her life isn’t going to be easy:
“I’m not sure if men really understand this, but I don’t think there’s a woman in America who really expects her life to be easy.”
If his comments weren’t so appalling, we would tell Ann Romney to shrug it off, that her speech was clearly incredibly effective to draw such an attack. But, the fact is that Democrats must rely on driving wedges in between various demographics because their policies have been an abysmal failure. Ann, we think you’re great and we think Williams was totally out of line.