I try to ignore the bogus controversies and fake outrage that dominate cable television news coverage, but the big to-do over Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” is on my mind this weekend.

I didn’t even know who Hilary Rosen was until Twitter erupted on April 11 over her comments on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show:

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately, women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But there’s — but he doesn’t connect on that issue either.

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, “Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.”

Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and how do we — why we worry about their future.

Predictably, Republicans made hay out of the supposed disrespect toward stay-at-home mothers. Hey everyone, a liberal Obama supporter said dedicated moms are worthless! Rosen clearly hadn’t intended to imply that mothers do nothing of value. She was mocking the idea that Ann Romney, who didn’t have to work outside the home while raising her children, is an expert on the economic challenges facing American women.

Just as predictably, Barack Obama’s team rushed to reinforce the Republican framing. Anything to demonstrate how truly, madly, deeply they respect, empower, and include the important mom voting bloc.

Within hours, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said said Rosen should apologize. Then political adviser David Axelrod said he was “disappointed” in Rosen’s “inappropriate and offensive” comments. First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted, “Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected”–as if Rosen had suggested otherwise. The next day, Vice President Joe Biden misrepresented what he called Rosen’s “outrageous” comments, implying she had criticized women who choose to stay home with their children. Finally, President Obama himself piled on, saying there is “no tougher job than being a mom.”

They’re as subtle as a baby screaming at 3 am. As a stay-at-home mother by choice, I find their pandering revolting.

In the middle of the April 11 uproar, Ann Romney made a triumphant Twitter debut that was “re-tweeted” a zillion times:

I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.

Parenting is hard work, but not every parent deals with the added stress of financial hardship. I’ve had my share of exhausting days and long nights. But when my son had a febrile seizure, I didn’t have to choose between paying the bill for his emergency room visit or paying the rent. When a tree limb fell across my car’s hood, I didn’t have to choose between getting the car fixed or paying the utility bills. I’ve never had to worry about food in our pantry lasting until the next paycheck, or whether my boys would outgrow their shoes before I could buy them a new pair.

Neither has Ann Romney. Mitt Romney is the one who said his wife is his expert on the issues that matter to American women, and Rosen was dead on:

I’ve nothing against @AnnRomney. I just don’t want Mitt using her as an expert on women struggling $ to support their family. She isn’t.

Like Ann Romney, I was able to choose not to work outside the home after having children. Rosen stated the obvious: most women with kids don’t have that option.

@AnnDRomney I am raising children too. But most young American women HAVE to BOTH earn a living AND raise children. You know that don’t u?

There’s no shame in being born into wealth, but the Romneys’ lack of self-awareness is astounding. Here’s what Ann Romney told the Twitterverse on April 12:

I’ll be with @marthamaccallum this morning at 10:40 discussing Hilary Rosen’s comments. All moms are entitled to choose their path.

Actually, no. Many moms are not “entitled” to choose whether they work outside the home. Furthermore, how can Ann Romney posture as a voice for female empowerment when the Romneys don’t even support a woman’s right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy?

On that Martha MacCallum Fox News show, Romney said she and her husband have compassion for people who are struggling, because “I know what it’s like to struggle.” My sympathy goes out to her and everyone else who suffers from multiple sclerosis, which is a dreadful disease. Her husband’s budget and tax proposals don’t reflect compassion for those in poverty or near-poverty, but that’s a topic for another day.

I’m fascinated by the Romneys’ apparent belief that they can relate to people on the edge. When Mitt Romney was running for U.S. Senate in 1994, Ann Romney recalled the hard times of the couple’s student life at Brigham Young University.

“They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income.

“It was tiny. And I didn’t have money to carpet the floor. But you can get remnants, samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting.

“We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time.

“The stock came from Mitt’s father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested Mitt’s birthday money year to year – it wasn’t much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education.

“Mitt and I walked to class together, shared housekeeping, had a lot of pasta and tuna fish and learned hard lessons.”

So, the Romneys stuck to a budget and lived below the standard to which they had become accustomed as children. But they were living off sales of stock, a safety net that doesn’t exist for any hard-up college student I’ve ever heard of.

Digby put it well.

I’m fairly sure that selling that stock was just as hard for them as it was for me to work at a full time job when I went to school. I can’t even imagine the pain I would have felt if I’d had to pick up the phone and take some profits instead of working nights and going to classes in the daytime.

Now, the truth is that Ann and Mitt had their first children during this time, so they were up all night as well. I suppose I might have done that too, but it would have been unaffordable for me to go to school and work full time and raise a child so I was very glad to have birth control easily available through Planned Parenthood.

Well-off people are not immune from suffering and stress, but it’s a whole different story for people who can’t afford basic necessities.

Reading about the “hard lessons” the Romneys learned while relying on a stock portfolio cushion reminded me of one of my pet peeves: when white-collar professionals say they deserve to be wealthy, because they work really hard. I wouldn’t call a surgeon or investment banker spending 60-plus hours a week at work lazy. But someone who barely makes ends meet while spending 60-plus hours a week at two minimum-wage jobs is working just as hard.

I was “downsized” in the 1990s, and losing a job I loved was a real punch in the gut. Probably the experience gave me more empathy toward the jobless, but I would not pretend to be the expert on unemployment in the U.S. today.

Back to the Rosen-Romney flap: this sorry episode ended with the public self-criticism we expect from Democrats at the center of a media frenzy. Rosen announced,

I deeply apologize again to work-in-home moms, Mrs Romney & the POTUS. Not going on #MTP this weekend. I’m going to be a mom who stays home

Let this be a lesson to Democratic surrogates. Rosen went on CNN as an independent analyst pushing the talking point that Romney’s policies are bad for women (Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, etc.). She voiced the same message in a column for CNN’s website. Obama and his team willfully misinterpreted her point and treated her like she’s radioactive. She then apologized to the president. Infuriating.

End of rant.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.