WaPo’s Marcus: WH CoS Kelly’s ‘Absolute Failure’ to Understand Abuse Shows He Sees Women as ‘the Other’

Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” while discussing White House chief of staff John Kelly knowing about allegations that former White House staff secretary Rob Porter abused his two ex-wives, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus said Kelly’s “absolute failure” to take domestic abuse seriously showed he “sees women as sort of a group of the other.”

Marcus said, “This is from the man who told us he longed for the days when women were sacred, this is an absolute failure, no matter what he says now, to understand the significance in a workplace context of domestic abuse allegations in your personal life.”

She added, “When he says he remembers the day when women were sacred, I know that was not said with animus towards women, but women don’t want to be put on a pedestal, women want to be treated fairly and equally in their workplaces and honestly at least in my house, at home. That notion of women as sacred is actually very much linked to not taking domestic abuse seriously or allegations of sexual harassment seriously. It sees women as sort of a group of the other. There are the guys who really run things in the military or the White House, and then there are these women who sometimes we have to tolerate, and sometimes they cause problems by speaking up about treatment that they don’t think is adequate. And I might be being a little hard on General Kelly, but there is a pattern that underlies this behavior that we’re focusing on right now.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN