Hey, I know about that binder! And guess what -- Mitt Romney was lying about it.
From the rush transcript:
CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?
ROMNEY: Thank you. 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.
I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.
Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort.
Not a true story.
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.
I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct -- and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.
Now, the truth would have been admirable enough, I'd think (although Bernstein goes on to make a few other important points about this), so why did Mitt Romney lie about it?
Well, that's what liars do. Mitt Romney has been lying since he started this campaign - not just in this general election battle, but during the primaries, too. Indeed, he's been running for president - and lying repeatedly - for years.
Romney has switched positions so many times that I don't see how he can remember what he's supposed to believe, at this point. And his versions of what he's done, and why, have changed just as frequently. Does he even know the truth himself, now?
Or is it just that lying is addictive. Lying has worked very well for Mitt Romney, so he keeps it up. Heck, lying has worked very well for the entire Republican Party, so why stop now? But it leads to lying about things you probably didn't need to lie about. That's my guess, anyway.
I think that lying has just become so natural to Romney and Ryan and GOP politicians in general that it's simply... automatic these days. Note how astonished Romney seemed to be when even the moderator pointed out his Libya lie, that "it took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror."
That's a lie. It's a lie that's everywhere in conservative media, touted by right-wing pundits, posted on right-wing blogs. But it's still a lie. But they're so used to lying to each other that they seem astonished when someone points that out.
Well, our media haven't been very good at pointing out these lies, have they? If they point out right-wing lies, then Fox 'News' will call them biased. And,... well, that would be just terrible, wouldn't it?
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