Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney on "Meet the Press"

If you don't know what you are talking about - or in the case of Ann Romney are clueless about the struggles and reality of others - sometimes it is better to simply shut up and be quiet.  Ms. Romney apparently has not gotten that message as she tried on Meet the Press to humanize her plastic robotic husband and herself yet she ended up underscoring just how out of touch they are in fact.  David Badash has a piece in The New Civil Rights Movement that looks at Ms. Romney's ill advised performance.  The woman truly has no clue how most Americans live pay check to pay check and may lie awake at night worry about how they will care for their families and make sure that they have health care, a roof over their heads, and basic necessities.  Here are highlights:

Ann Romney, in a Meet The Press interview – rare for a candidate and their spouse to appear together — took that opportunity and severely damaged her husband’s campaign. Ann Romney suffers from Marie Antoinette syndrome, apparently, and the Romney campaign is ludicrously unaware that when the 63-year old dressage equestrian speaks to the press, she often reveals just how much of a moneyed, out-of-touch one percenter she, and Mitt, truly are.

Ann says Mitt “has been demonized in many ways as being heartless,” and uses the example of him visiting a dying leukemia patient.

Ann neglects to connect the dots that Mitt may have visited a dying leukemia patient, but President Obama has worked to ensure that dying leukemia patients, people with pre-existing conditions, and practically all Americans can get the healthcare they need by making it more accessible and affordable, eliminating lifetime caps and pre-existing condition denials.

Mrs. Romney also told David Gregory on Meet The Press:

Well, I think the thing that I want to communicate to people, and that it’s so important that people understand, is that Mitt and I do recognize that we have not had a financial struggle in our lives. But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle. And our struggles have not been financial, but they’ve been with health and with difficulties in different things in life.

While Ann Romney has had to struggle with breast cancer and MS — two devastating diseases that are no one should have to face in the 21st century — she had the benefit of access to the best healthcare, drugs and treatments — traditional and alternative — and doctors money can buy, something her husband would deny Americans who can’t afford it. Indeed, Ann Romney’s MS treatment regime is just plain inaccessible to the vast majority of those who might need it. While diseases place unimaginable stresses and struggles on anyone who is fighting them, and their family, Ann Romney never had to worry about how to pay for her treatments.

When Americans are literally cutting their prescriptions in half to make them last longer, Ann Romney has never used a pill cutter to save money, or worry about what to buy: medication or food, as far too many Americans do every day. The very Americans who her husband would like to deprive of access to those medications, and government programs that literally help keep them alive.

In short, Ann Romney and her husband Mitt no doubt have faced some of the same struggles as many Americans. Illness, a prime example. But their financial ability to shield themselves from the ravages of those diseases has apparently inoculated them from understanding how not being able to afford life saving treatment, drugs, and care impact the rest of America. If it hadn’t, they would be championing Obamacare, food stamps, and TANF.

Yes, I have been brutal on Ann Romney.  I make no apologies.  What her husband and Paul Ryan seek to do to countless Americans is even more brutal and certainly underscores the hypocrisy of both Romneys and Paul Ryan who pretend to embrace the Gospel message even as they make the Biblical Pharisees look like pretty in touch folks.