On the April 30 edition of NOW with Alex Wagner, panelist Robert Traynham had the courage to confront the liberal panel on the Left's hypocrisy on a gender "pay gap" and the so-called War on Women. The panel took off in typical liberal fashion with Wagner criticizing Mitt Romney and all Republicans for showing a lack of empathy about how women's median pay in America is about 77 percent of the median pay for men.
In response, Traynham called out Wagner for her liberal attacks by pointing out the hypocrisy of the Left on the subject. Traynham skillfully reminded Wagner and his fellow panelists that former Obama staffers Anita Dunn and Christine Romer were quoted on the record in a book published last year criticizing the unequal pay women within the Obama White House receive. Romer also was quoted by liberal journalist Ron Suskind as having said she felt treated like a "piece of meat" by Obama staffers. [Video follows page break MP3 audio here.]
Liberal columnist David Corn of Mother Jones couldn’t question the overall point Traynham was making that women in Obama’s White House get paid less than men. Instead Corn was reduced to claiming that Robert was misquoting Dunn by leaving out a reference to Obama being the reason why the White House didn’t fall under the legal definition of a hostile workplace.
But as you can see from the video, it's pretty clear Wagner and Corn were uncomfortable with Traynham bring up the inconvenient truth of the Obama White House's "wage gap."
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC
NOW with Alex Wagner
12:35 p.m.
April 30, 2012
ALEX WAGNER: Mitt Romney on FOX last week said people want jobs. If they want bigger paychecks, they can go vote for him. Which I think denigrates the entire sort of problem that we have which is that women make 70 cents, 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Also keep in mind that working women, there are 66.2 million of them as of 2009. That's 22% of the population.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Absolutely. Look, I have two comments. One, according to the latest PEW poll, women dropped five points with the president from 58% to 53%. Romney leads 49-42 when it comes to married women just as an FYI. What I also find interesting about all of this is the hypocrisy or the slight hypocrisy with the Obama White House with this. Let me be very clear from my lips to your ears so that everyone understands, I am for equal pay for women. I am for equal everything when it comes to human beings being treated like human beings.
WAGNER: Gender parity.
TRAYNHAM: However, according to Anita Dunn the former Communications Director of the White House, “this place would be in court for a hostile workplace.” This is Anita Dunn also with the Politico, “Obama White House pays women less than men, records show.” This was as of March of 2011. Even Obama himself and I'm quoting “Obama himself is responsible for a work atmosphere that marginalizes and ignores women. That's in "Time" magazine.
DAVID CORN: Robert, on the Anita Dunn quote....
TRAYNHAM: Let me finish. Former economic, Christine Romer. I feel like a piece of meat in this White House. This president does not, according to this, this president does not listen.
CORN: Listen, on the Anita Dunn quote, the full quote was if it were not for Barack Obama, this would be a hostile workplace. That's the full quote. That’s not the quote that got pulled out of the interview. And so, you know, If you want to quote her, you should quote the full thing. And she's been on in the papers explaining that it was a selected editing job on than particular quote.
