The reaction by Republicans to yesterday’s remark by Hilary Rosen that Ann Romney “has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing” seems to indicate the party is desperate about the gender gap between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Can that be true? James Downie says yes.

Look, I know what Rosen was trying to say. Mrs. Romney has raised five kids, she’s had cancer and she suffers from MS. Obviously she’s worked hard to overcome the diseases, and raising kids is certainly hard work. What Rosen meant was “she hasn’t had to work outside the home for low wages all the while trying to be a mother, as many American women do.” Her phrasing was unfortunate but her thought was accurate.

As Downie says, the Republicans leapt all over this to the point of hysteria. But they really do protest too much. See Alec McGillis’s wonderful response to the howling.

This stuff is ridiculous, and I’ve been through enough of these campaigns to know that it’s getting worse. When the possible future First Lady, a woman who by most reports is as dignified as they come, is dragooned into setting up a Twitter account late on a weekday night so she can tweet her outrage over a line spoken on a news network no one watches, and her grown sons then chime in with their own go-mom tweets, and the rest of us get breathless (“game on!”)—well, it’s time to pause for at least a millisecond and recognize that while this is how it is, it doesn’t have to be this way.