Michelle Goldberg's Chutzpah

Michelle Goldberg was rightly and vehemently called for her despicable attack in Ann Romney. The video is here: "Pro-Choice Extremist Michelle Goldberg Smears Ann Romney as Just Like Hitler, Stalin."

Upset by the backlash, Goldberg has written a faux apology, basically doubling down and dissing Ann Romney for her alleged determination to "play up the idea that’s she’s being victimized for being a stay-at-home mom." Boy, that's takes a lot of gall, which Goldberg has in spades. See, "Michelle Goldberg on the Ann Romney Hitler Tempest":

I got into trouble ... by saying that Romney’s closing lines, about how there is “no crown more glorious” than the “crown of motherhood,” reminded me of the pronatalist propaganda of World War II-era totalitarian regimes. That was a mistake. Not because I don’t think it’s true—when I read Romney’s words, I immediately thought of the “Motherhood Glory” medals that Stalin gave to women who had lots of children, and of the Nazi cult of motherhood, which Hitler called women’s “highest exaltation.” To me, bombastic odes to traditional maternity have a sinister ring, especially when they come from people who want to curtail women’s rights. But it was an offhand point, and one that wasn’t worth the aggravation it’s caused. I should have realized that right-wingers were going to pretend that I was saying that Romney is akin to two of the century’s most murderous tyrants.

For the record, I don’t believe that Ann Romney is either Hitleresque or Stalinesque. Rather, I think she is a calculating political wife who once struck me as fairly likeable, but who is now determined to play up the idea that’s she’s being victimized for being a stay-at-home mom. Her op-ed was part of that effort. Unfortunately, if the messages I received on Monday are any indication, it’s an effort I might have assisted.

In addition to missives full of obscenities, critiques of my appearance and expressions of regret that my mother failed to abort me, there have been a bunch of calls for me to apologize to Romney for calling her a Nazi. If I had done that, of course, I would. I’m tempted to anyway, in case my words have been genuinely rather than tendentiously misunderstood. Romney, though, has made it pretty clear that she relishes opportunities to act the martyr. When CNN contributor Hilary Rosen inadvertently launched a new phase in the mommy wars by saying that Ann Romney was unqualified to serve as her husband’s chief adviser on women’s issues because she had “never worked a day in her life,” Mrs. Romney was delighted. “It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother, and that was really a defining moment, and I loved it,” she said at a private fundraiser.

So my apologies aren’t for Ann Romney, but for everyone else...

I wrote about Goldberg late last year, when she wrote a prominent essay foolishly denying anti-Semitism in the Occupy Wall Street movement ("Occupy Wall Street and the Jews"). And see also, "Michelle Goldberg: 'A Feminist With Paranoid Fantasies About Christian Fundamentalists Taking Away Her Sacred Right to Choose'."

HAT TIP: Twitchy, "Michelle Goldberg’s faux-pology to Ann Romney."