Video: White House adviser says Ann Romney never worked

The “War on Women,” as most liberal pundits have dubbed it, took a new turn yesterday on the airwaves of CNN. White House adviser and Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen made the claim that in raising 5 children, and choosing to stay home, Ann Romney never “worked a day in her life.” This immediately put the Obama campaign on the defense and opened the door for the Romney campaign to introduce Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, on a huge national stage.

Report from the Washington Post:

Overnight President Obama’s faux “war on women” attack on Mitt Romney blew up in his face. It is fitting that a gimmick should boomerang this quickly and this severely, maybe giving Romney the first big break of the race.

By now you’ve probably heard that Hilary Rosen, a sometime White House adviser and frequent visitor, on CNN attacked the most popular person in the campaign, Ann Romney, with a cartoon version of left-leaning feminism, declaring that the mother of five who has battle multiple sclerosis and cancer “never worked a day in her life.” (Query why the conservative on the panel sat there like a lump on the log. Maybe a few more conservative women on CNN would balance the coverage. He claims to have “missed it.” Indeed.) No, this really happened. Honest. But it didn’t stop. Rosen took to Twitter to dig her hole deeper and deeper, never apologizing. (At this point Republicans should be humming Dayenu.)

But it didn’t end there. Obama political hacks David Axelrod and Jim Messina took to Twitter to condemn the remarks and to call on Rosen to apologize, thereby making Rosen seem closer to the president’s campaign (and the campaign more responsible for her gaffe than might otherwise be the case). And — yup — it didn’t end there. Ann Romney now is on Twitter and got a gazillion followers in just hours. Her first tweet was a keeper: “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”

Here is the video of discussion:

This couldn’t be more unhelpful for the Obama campaign. Conservatives will take this as a reason to rally around Romney in a way they may not have previously been inclined to. Social conservatives especially will take a deep offense to this and in chastising Rosen, the Obama campaign has inadvertently taken some ownership of the comments.