CNN's Yellin: Romney's 'Binder' Comments Sounded 'Almost Like' Women Are 'Mail-Order Product' Out of 'Binders'

October 18th, 2012 5:03 PM

Not 24 hours after Tuesday's presidential debate, CNN's Jessica Yellin was working the Obama spin on Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment.

"You know, it made it sound almost like working women are some mail-order product you can order out of colored binders," she ridiculously claimed on Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360. CNN's White House correspondent played right into the White House talking points. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

"And, you know, there are so many directions you can go. What did the tabs in that binder say for each of the women, you know?" she continued her tripe. "[T]his does not suggest that he [Romney] understands the sense of outsider-ness many women feel when they work for – in largely male environments."

Another Yellin point echoed the Vice President's campaign talk on Thursday. Biden lambasted Romney's words on the campaign trail, "The idea that he had to go and ask where a qualified woman was, he just should have come to my house. He didn't need a binder."

Yellin's similar rant went as follows: "And two, it raises a question, this was a man who, at the time he became governor, had been a top executive in the business world for multiple decades, and didn't he already know qualified women that he could call upon? Why did he need to go outside and get a binder full of women to find some?"

During the height of the campaign season, CNN's credibility should come under some major scrutiny when its White House correspondent is passionately making a similar argument to the White House talking points.

h/t TheRightScoop

A transcript of Yellin's remarks, made on October 17 on Anderson Cooper 360 at 8:09 p.m. EDT, is as follows:

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN chief White House correspondent: Yes. They are working it on the trail all day already. Look, Anderson, it was very unfortunate for Governor Romney because it sort of raises this question, can he relate to working women? You know, it made it sound almost like working women are some mail-order product you can order out of colored binders. And, you know, there are so many directions you can go.

What did the tabs in that binder say for each of the women, you know? And the problem for Governor Romney is twofold. One, if he's trying to show, and he is, that he can relate to and understand the frustrations working women go through, this does not suggest that he understands the sense of outsider-ness many women feel when they work for – in largely male environments.

And two, it raises a question, this was a man who, at the time he became governor, had been a top executive in the business world for multiple decades, and didn't he already know qualified women that he could call upon? Why did he need to go outside and get a binder full of women to find some? Now as Jim Acosta just pointed out, he actually did know women and he had some on his staff so he did himself a disservice with the way he phrased this, Anderson. But the Obama team is getting mileage out of it.