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