FOX News Channel once again welcomed “stay-at-home mom” Penny Nance to the network to praise President George W. Bush. On the August 5 edition of FOX News Live, Nance praised Bush for his “tough leadership” and asserted that “American women cannot relate to Teresa Heinz [Kerry].” Neither anchor David Asman, who identified her only as a “stay-at-home mom,” nor the text displayed on the screen beneath her (“used to be a full time lobbyist” and “started a non-profit organization for moms”) informed viewers that Nance has in fact made a career out of pushing conservative causes.
As Media Matters for America noted the last time she appeared as a panelist on FOX News Channel, Penny Young Nance is the president of the nonprofit Kids First Coalition and is currently registered as its lobbyist. Kids First Coalition takes conservative positions on issues such as abortion and permitting church pastors to speak out on politics without jeopardizing their church's tax-exempt status. She is also a board member of the right-wing organization Concerned Women for America; a former staff member of Representative Pat Swindall (R-GA); and president of Nance and Associates, a public policy and media consulting firm.
After Nance offered profuse praise for Bush, Asman interrupted co-panelist Victoria Budson (founding executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government) and shouted down fellow co-panelist Diane Salvatore, editor of Ladies' Home Journal, to give Nance the last word on Teresa Heinz Kerry.
From the August 5 edition of FOX News Channel's FOX News Live:
NANCE: [W]hat American women are looking for, what we security moms are looking for is tough leadership, the kind of man President [George W.] Bush is. He looked evil in the eye. He looked terror in the eye and called it by its proper name.
[...]
ASMAN: What about Teresa Heinz Kerry -- a lot of questions about whether she is popular among women or not. What do you think?
BUDSON: Teresa Heinz Kerry did an excellent job at the Democratic Convention last week. She was able to reach out to the American public and present herself in a way that women all across America were able to relate to her. I think that what we saw during the Democratic Convention was John Kerry as well as Teresa Heinz reaching out to the women's vote, talking about those day-to-day issues which women face [inaudible because Asman talking] --
ASMAN: Well, Penny, very quickly, what did you think -- we only have about ten seconds -- of Teresa Heinz?
NANCE: American women cannot relate to Teresa Heinz.
SALVATORE: However --
ASMAN: Hold on, hold on! Finish your point.
NANCE: She absolutely goes in a different circle than we do. She's worried more about her friends in Georgetown [an area within Washington, DC] than she is the average woman. She does not relate to us. We do not relate to her.
ASMAN: OK -- we've got to leave it at that.