The Obama campaign's adolescent rhetoric

Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, sent out a campaign mass email today. In reads in part:

Romney was shifty when it came to women's issues. He gave an awkward and dishonest answer about his refusal to stand up for legislation that helps women fight back when they don't receive equal pay for equal work.  [Emph. added]

It would be difficult to catalog everything that is wrong with this claim.  She is talking about "equal pay for equal work" legislation. This is highly controversial because, unlike an "equal pay for same work" policy, this requires the government to define what is "equal work."  Is being a firefighter, for example, "equal work" to being a secretary?  The legislation is an end run around market pricing of labor and would be an administrative nightmare, both of which good reasons to oppose it.  However, Cutter does not say that Romney opposes it.  She talks about Romney's "refusal to stand up for" this legislation as if, in her imaginary world, Romney would support it except that, in the face of unspecified bullies, he is too cowardly to "stand up" for it.

Cutter continues:

Romney also didn't tell the truth about his plan to take away women's access to affordable contraception by repealing Obamacare, or his support of an extreme proposal to put employers in charge of whether female employees can get contraception through their insurance plan.  [Emph. added]

Of course, no one is proposing to take away "access."  The debate is about who pays.  What exactly is Romney's "extreme proposal"?  His "extreme proposal" is to continue to obey the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause and, unlike Obamacare, not require third parties to pay for someone else's abortifacients.  It is Obama's proposal that is extreme.

What these two passages have in common is a combination of self-delusion, self-righteousness, and primitive emotional reasoning.  It is like Cutter is expecting her audience to think like teenagers.

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