How dumb is the 'war on women' meme?

They think we're stupid.  They must.  How else to explain it?

Lsst year, during the GOP debates many of us were baffled by questions from the moderators about birth control.  No one was talking about birth control  If any pollster had been silly enough to ask voters where they ranked birth control on a list of important political issues for the next election, it would have come in one spot lower than last. 

So why the questions?  Sure the moderators were strong supporters of the Democrats, but what did they seek to gain?  To waste time, distract from the real issues, confuse the candidates, bore viewers to the point they changed the channel?  It made no sense.  That is, until Obama's announcement that the Catholic Church's fundamental constitutional right to freedom of religion was going to be trumped by his desire to give women 'free' birth control (paid for by employers).  When supporters of the church and the constitution expressed their concerns, Obama's spin machine accused them of being against birth control as part of a war on women.  Obviously, the debate questions were merely the first steps in a coordinated strategy by the Obama campaign.

But what kind of strategery?  Even before Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen made a fool of herself, the 'war on women' claim was a joke.  Actually, it was more scary than funny.  Is this really the kind of tactic that the White House thinks is smart?  This was planned over a long period of time.  This was thought out (using the term loosely).  Who thinks like this?  Who thinks that American voters are going to be convinced that the GOP wants to ban birth control?

Since I don't want to consider that Obama and his advisors could possibly be this stupid, I have to believe that this can be explained as their cynical belief that we are this stupid.  Yes, they were correct to believe that the news media would parrot the charge, but can they really be correct that the voters are this stupid?  I'm not buying.