MSNBC's Andrea Michell openly wondered whether male officials in the United States were slow to respond to the kidnappings in Nigeria because it involved school girls Wednesday afternoon.
"It really calls into question whether the men in charge of our government frankly would have been responding more quickly despite Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria’s opposition, whether they would have been responding more rapidly if it had been schoolgirls, if it hadn't been some other premise," Mitchell said.
A surprised Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Calif.) replied "you mean if it had involved school boys? No - "
A flustered and stumbling Mitchell quickly attempted to clarify the premise of her question.
"Or some other military, I guess some other cause. Because it just seems that it took forever to mobilize the U.S. government even against the opposition of the Nigerian government," she said.
"I'm not going to speculate on that," Feinstein said.