Hilary Rosen flap: A campaign gift to Mitt Romney

It began with Hilary Rosen's comment late Wednesday on cable news that seemed to criticize Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, for choosing to stay home and raise their five sons rather than work.
hanks to social media, the remark quickly escalated into a fracas over the role of women in American society.

It gave Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee for president who is scrambling to improve his ratings among women voters, a chance to reach out to them through his wife. And it sent Democratic President Obama's top campaign staff members - and by Thursday afternoon, the president and first lady - rushing to disavow the pundit's remark.

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