I’ve been avoiding this all day but my curiosity’s finally gotten the better of me. Question: Are Democrats obsessing over Romney’s “binders full of women” line at the debate purely as a joke, or are they actually pegging it as some sort of killer new “Big Bird”-style meme that’s going to turn the election for them? Anyone have a decent read on that? I could surf around for answers, but I’ve reached the same saturation point as Andrew Stiles and frankly can’t take much more:

https://twitter.com/AndrewStilesWFB/status/258433610992975872

He forgot car elevators and the 50-year-old high-school haircut. Jim Treacher’s tweet round-up is a mixed bag of sly and serious, as is this surreal shot of protesters in Ohio. If it’s all a goof aimed at needling the other party’s guy, fair enough; so was the “Obama ate a dog” meme, which was silly but fun and even cathartic as an absurdist rejoinder to the left’s dumb preoccupation with the Seamus story. They were all wound up last night hoping that O wouldn’t crap the bed at a second debate and blow the election entirely, and when he didn’t they decided to let off steam. Got it; no problem. But then I see Greg Sargent trying to jumpstart it, half-heartedly, as a legit Topic of Concern, and I read things like this post at Townhall summarizing the NBC’s and WaPo’s interest in it, and I think maybe we’ve found a rich new vein of “war on women” tedium. Watch the clip below; The One even made a reference to it on the trail today. By the final weekend, Big Bird’s actually going to be campaigning with him, isn’t he/it?

Since we’re on the subject of binding women, though, and we’re being forced to take this semi-seriously, let’s follow the Standard’s lead and revisit one of the Obama White House’s glorious “progressive” achievements:

“This place would be in court for a hostile workplace,” former White House communications director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying. “Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”…

“I felt like a piece of meat,” Christina Romer, former head of the Council of Economic Advisers, said of one meeting in which Suskind writes she was “boxed out” by Summers…

“The president has a real woman problem,” an unnamed high-ranking female official told Suskind. “ The idea of the boys’ club being just Larry and Rahm isn’t really fair. He [Obama] was just as responsible himself.”…

Obama, according to the book published by Harper Collins, failed to call on Romer after asking her male colleagues for their opinions. The snub prompted Romer to pass a note to Summers where she threatened to walk out of the dinner, according to the book.

The Obama White House has long been dogged by similar claims of exclusivity — his golf outings have been typically all-male affairs, though Melody Barnes, who heads the Domestic Policy Council was invited on at least one round of golf in October 2009 after much grumbling about Obama’s choice of golf buddies.

The White House also reportedly pays its women staffers a median salary that’s considerably less than what their male counterparts receive, but much like drone strikes, “kill lists,” and warrantless electronic surveillance, these are Topics of Concern only when they conform to the prefab narrative about regressive Republicans. Ah well. Here’s that video of The One, along with a new ad from Romney. Exit quotation: “He was very thoughtful about who he brought in the administration.