It takes real nerve to insist that “women are not some monolithic group, women are not an interest group” at an event entitled “The White House Forum on Women and the Economy,” so good for you, champ. There are voters in every demographic group who enjoy being reduced to an “identity” and then patronized for it; you earned ’em today in the demographic you’re targeting with this unctuous display. Special congrats on the ol’ crowdpleaser about how Congress would get more done if only it had more women and less of those darned men. I’ll bet Hillary, especially, enjoyed that rhetorical consolation prize after falling short in 2008.

Even ABC, in a straight-up news report on the event, couldn’t refrain from wincing:

In a much-publicized event at the White House, Obama, who has already called the liberal Georgetown student harangued by Rush Limbaugh, joined the fray again. As women from around the country crowded into an auditorium to hear Obama speak, the president told them that they don’t amount to some political “interest group” and that “you shouldn’t be treated that way.”

He then pandered to them by reminding them that he signed into law a bill that works to help women get paid as much as men do for the same jobs, and that he appointed two women to the Supreme Court…

There was little nonpolitical about the ordeal. Even Holder, who conceded in a workgroup with a couple dozen women that he’s not supposed to veer into politics as attorney general, said that “at the end of this electoral process,” women would be better served by having Obama and Vice President Biden in charge to work on issues important to them.

That’s today’s event in microcosm — nonpolitical, yet ridiculously political. No wonder Holder lapsed into campaign mode. Why bother keeping up the charade? They needed to organize something at the White House that would give the media an excuse to keep blathering about the “war on women” and this is what they came up, replete with a few soundbite-ready lines for The One (including a gross exaggeration about Planned Parenthood offering mammograms) so that cable news would have some footage to air as an intro to yet another navel-gazing segment about Republican misogyny. Case in point: After you’re done here with O, go watch the predictably hackish hit piece on Bashir’s show this afternoon that left Mediaite aghast. Or read this paint-by-numbers attempt by lefty Brent Budowsky at The Hill to tie the Supreme Court to the “war on women” theme. Lots of water-carriers for Obama out there in the media. Today he refilled their buckets.

Exit question: In honor of O’s attempt to reduce women to a monolithic interest group based on gender, here’s one for the moms out there. How do you like it that this chump keeps dropping anvils of debt on your kids’ heads and then, when asked to stop, the best he can do is offer this pathetic travesty?