Megyn Kelly hosted Mitt Romney’s former lieutenant governor, a woman and a Romney surrogate, to help rehab explain Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment that sparked what even Kelly acknowledged was a “firestorm” on the internet. But Kelly either deliberately ignored or somehow missed that her guest contradicted Romney’s own story about his concern for putting women in his cabinet. She also accepted without question the dubious claim that women made up 50% of Romney’s cabinet. (H/T Jim M.)

Kelly began by playing a clip in which Romney said:

We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And I brought us whole binders full of — of women. I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my cabinet and my senior staff that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.

What she left out was Romney’s preceding comment, which provided a bit more context:

MR. ROMNEY: Thank you. And — important topic and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the — the chance to pull together a Cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are — are all men?

They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?

Got that? According to what Romney said in the debate, he sought out women after he was elected because he happened to notice and then became concerned that all the applicants to his cabinet were men.

But according to guest Kerry Healey, Romney’s lieutenant governor, Romney's interest in hiring women was due to a pledge he made to a women’s organization during the campaign. Healey told Kelly's Fox viewers:

Back story here is that a women’s organization, a bi-partisan women’s organization, the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, came to both candidates in the race and said, “If you’re elected, will you pledge, will you promise to put as many women in your cabinet as there are a percentage of women in Massachusetts, which is about 50%. Both candidates said yes. And so when Governor Romney was elected, he set out to fulfill that promise. One thing you can know about Governor Romney is that when he makes a promise while he’s campaigning, he’s going to fulfill that promise.

It’s possible this just got by Kelly but a simple Google search would have told her Romney hadn't been quite truthful in his debate remark. This was reported in The Boston Globe and the question was raised in The Washington Post, too, e.g..

But wait, there’s more. Kelly asked Healey, “How did the numbers work out?”

Healey answered, “50%. And it was the highest in the nation.”

But again, this is not quite accurate. The Boston Globe reports:

Romney did have several women in prominent positions—such as Beth Myers, as chief of staff, or Healey, as lieutenant governor – and he made an effort to hire more women.

Midway through his four-year term, 42 percent of his 33 new appointments were women, according to a study done by the UMass Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy using some of the data collected by MassGAP.

But over the next two years, women made up only 25 percent of the 64 new appointments Romney made. By the end of his term, the number of women in high-ranking positions was slightly lower than it was before Romney took office.

It’s funny how Kelly, whose show airs during what is supposedly part of Fox’s “objective news” line up, seems to have done absolutely no research in preparation for this interview.