What was Michelle Bernard, president and CEO of the Independent Women’s Forum, thinking when she threw Bob McDonnell, the much-discussed Republican running for governor of Virginia, under the bus yesterday on Hardball?

She said, in part:

Look, look at the women as the jury on this. They‘re going to look at his tone, the tenor, and the character. Character is the big issue here. Who is this man? Has he evolved? There are many people that were troglodytes on a whole array of issues. Has he evolved, and how does he prove to the American public, particularly women, that he does not—that he no longer believes the things that he said in his essay?
…
BERNARD: Look, he‘s got a major problem here.
MATTHEWS: … morally.
BERNARD: And he‘s got to prove that he has evolved.
If you are a rabid feminist, right-wing, crazy, rabid, frosting-at-the feminist—mouth feminist, you‘re going to be absolutely disgusted, and never believe that he has evolved.
MATTHEWS: You mean a right-wing feminist? Are you mixing your metaphors there?
(LAUGHTER)
BERNARD: Mixing my metaphors.
MATTHEWS: OK. Yes, right.
BERNARD: Left-wing feminist.
MATTHEWS: OK.
BERNARD: But, if you are a right-wing feminist, meaning you are a stay-at-home mom, maybe somebody who—who, like Sarah Palin, for example, homeschooling your children, he‘s also got a problem, because those women consider the work that they do very—very important. And they also say, do not discriminate against our sisters who have decided to work outside of the home.
If you‘re a moderate and you feel that the choice is yours, do you want to work outside of the home or not, should you be able to use birth control in your marriage, which he also was against in his thesis, you‘re going to think this man is a troglodyte, and—and maybe feel it is very difficult to believe that he has changed his views.
Or even if—assume—let‘s assume he hasn‘t changed his views. Can he really act as a governor of a state and completely separate his views about women in the workplace—think about all those women in Northern Virginia—and…
MATTHEWS: Yes.
BERNARD: … actually act as governor in a way that meets their needs and their philosophy about how they want to live their lives?

If we want to figure out what bearing a thesis written in 1989 might have on how McDonnell would govern Virginia, we need to know what’s in the thesis in the first place. I can’t imagine that Michelle Bernard read it. As Ramesh explained on the Washington Post website yesterday, McDonnell didn’t say anything about whether you “should. . . be able to use birth control in your marriage,” and his entire point about women who work outside the home was that the government shouldn’t discriminate between them and women who don’t. So Bernard doesn’t seem to know what she’s talking about here.

The Independent Women’s Forum was established by conservative women who believed in standing up to left-wing feminism and political correctness. John O’Sullivan coined the law that all organizations that are not explicitly right-wing end up becoming left-wing over time — and later added that some organizations that are explicitly right-wing drift that way too. It’s sad to watch IWF head in that direction live on MSNBC.