Conway: Where's the Outrage Over 'Sexist' Couch Photo Joke?

Rep. Cedric Richmond's comment called 'disgusting and offensive'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 3, 2017 7:57 AM CST
Conway: Where's the Outrage Over 'Sexist' Couch Photo Joke?
The photo Rep. Cedric Richmond was referring to.   (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Comments related to the photo of Kellyanne Conway kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office drew a few laughs at the Washington Press Club Foundation's annual awards dinner Wednesday, particularly when Republican Sen. Tim Scott joked that "a whole lot worse" happened on that couch in the 1990s. (Burn, Bill.) But then—according to Conway—the joking went a bit too far. In what the Washington Post calls "an apparently off-script joke," Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Democrat from Louisiana, had this to say:

  • "Tim, you kind of opened the door. I really just want to know what was going on there, because, you know, I won't tell anybody. And you can just explain to me that circumstance—because she really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don't answer—and I don't want you to refer back to the 1990s."

While some believed Richmond was referring to a sex act with the "familiar" line, he says he meant nothing sexual by it. "Where I grew up, saying that someone is looking or acting 'familiar' simply means that they are behaving too comfortably," Richmond said Thursday. Conway—who has vigorously defended the photo—isn't buying that explanation. "I notice he did not apologize, he tried to clarify," she tells the Daily Caller, adding the comment was "sexist" and the media would be expressing outrage if she were "a liberal woman" and "a pro-abortion one." GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel isn't pleased, either, calling the remark "disgusting and offensive" and "a reminder of the demeaning comments women hear every single day." Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has called for Richmond to apologize, reports the Advocate. (More Kellyanne Conway stories.)

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