The Republican National Committee rolled out a new ad over the weekend called "Obama's War on Women," linking comedian and Obama campaign backer Bill Maher's controversial comments about Sarah Palin to the administration.
The 90-second spot featured several TV news personalities, including ABC's George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and CNN's Erin Burnett.
"At first I was kind of amused I was included," Burnett said Monday. "Then I was annoyed. I certainly don't agree that Democrats are in a war on women."
Conservatives have criticized liberals for attacking Rush Limbaugh over his comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke but failing to denounce Maher.
But neither party, Burnett said, "came out hard enough when the offender was one of its own."
"To say an entire party—either party—is at war with women? This is all just politics," she said. "Frankly, we've seen many references to a War on Women recently—from Dems and GOP."
More from Burnett:
"Both sides need to be honest that the words used—like the s-word and the c-word, are not acceptable. Not by someone who is a pundit, an entertainer, a broadcaster ... or a co-worker. Not by anyone. There isn't any defending it. This isn't political, this should be personal for all Americans. If you're a woman, you get it. Because you deal with sexism, in both its mundane and offensive forms. If you're a man, you have women in your life whom you respect and you don't want to hear those words used to describe them.
"When my father ran for Congress during a special election in 1969, the slogan he used was "Let's End Politics As Usual." And that still holds true today. Let's end this talk about a war on women and name calling ... and instead have substantive conversations about the real issues: like women's pay and reproductive rights."
Earlier in the program, Burnett interviewed Democratic National Committee chairman Bill Burton about Maher.
"I'm not going to stand here and defend vulgarity no matter who's using it," Burton said. "I'm just not going to. But I'm also not going to accept the Republicans' selective outrage when they get mad over who uses what terms. And to listen to Rush Limbaugh or Ted Nugent, I think that Republicans are very happy to ignore that and just try to use this as an issue to distract from what are actually important issues that we're trying to discuss in this election."
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