Romney Hires Misogynist Dick as New Spokesman

If you were a presidential candidate facing a huge gender gap in the polls, would you: A) Hire as your new spokesman a guy who has made such repeated sexist attacks against women like Rachel Maddow, Callista Gingrich, Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, and Michelle Obama, that he had to scrub 800 tweets from his account, or would you: B) TOTALLY NOT HIRE THAT GUY.

If you chose option B, congratulations! You're not Mitt Romney:

NEW YORK -- Richard Grenell, a former Bush administration official who joined the Romney campaign Thursday as national security and foreign policy spokesman, appears to have deleted more than 800 of his past tweets following scrutiny over numerous swipes aimed at the media, prominent Democratic women and the Gingriches. Grenell also apparently took down his personal site, which featured writing on politics, foreign affairs and the media.

In the Twitter-fueled 2012 election, it's not surprising that reporters quickly began digging through Grenell's Twitter feed, even before he got a chance to scrub out a number of impolitic and sexist comments.

ThinkProgress noted Grenell's tendency to make cutting remarks about the appearances of prominent women in media and politics, including his tweet advising MSNBC host Rachel Maddow "to take a breath and put on a necklace," and another suggesting she resembled a Justin Bieber.

In another tweet, Grenell wrote that "Hillary is starting to look liek Madeline [sic] Albright." He discussed First Lady Michelle Obama working out and "sweating on the East Room carpet." He also asked whether Callista Gingrich's "hair snaps on," and on another occasion, commented how Gingrich's third wife "stands there like she is wife #1." Politico flagged more examples and noted Grenell's "old pastime" of "ridiculing the Gingriches."

When contacted about Romney's hiring of Grenell and his removal of online writing, a campaign spokesperson referred The Huffington Post to a response Grenell gave to Politico. "My tweets were written to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous but I can now see how they can also be hurtful," Grenell said. "I didn’t mean them that way and will remove them from twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused."

Sure, Richard. Sure you apologize... now that you got caught.

Besides, one is usually known by the company that one keeps, and it seems that Grenell has done some writing for the late Andrew Breitbart's disastrous blog, Big Journalism (although it appears that all of his writings for that website have been scrubbed from the Internet as well). It appears that Grenell is a tried-and-true wingnut.

Oh, and Grenell is openly gay -- not that there's anything wrong with it -- but that is not going to play well with social conservatives (like hatemonger Bryan J. Fischer) who already have serious concerns about Romney's mormoniness.

So there you have it, folks -- with this questionable political hire, it seems the Mittastrophe might never end.