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Granted, Tim, the timing is convenient for Patti Solis Doyle's mommy crisis. But couldn't both versions of events be true for Hillary's former campaign manager? Say your life's work is going down in flames—to the point that One Life to Live seems more realistic all the time, and that storyline about waitressing in Paris, Texas, not altogether unappealing. And just when you're at the absolute snapping point, the one bright spot in your life ... wants Daddy? Not that this is a historical first, no, but when you're overwrought, I could see it being a moment of clarity, just as Hillary needed to make a change. (And as Paul Begala said on CNN the other night, when a campaign is in trouble, you can't fire the candidate, so somebody else has to take the hit.)
"The kids needed me'' may be poll-tested, but it's also a narrative I can't say no to—unless, and this is absolutely unfair—a man is telling the tale. For instance, I heard George Allen on the radio Tuesday saying how it was worth losing to Jim Webb because his 9-year-old daughter made him pancakes last Saturday, and that I found pukatrocious.
As for the crazy goddesses, I'm just as fond of them all the same as I was of my Aunt Ginny who spoke to dead people; they've earned those off-the-meds moments, and may even feel they are required. Though snits like that do suggest that somebody's power is being threatened, which is why I also take them as a sign that the abortion lobby worries that Obama—who is 100 percent pro-choice, despite Hillary's claims to the contrary—might fail to get into the kind of big pointless fights that raise a lot of cash for interest groups.
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So, some folks are worried that "feminism is out of style." Gee, could it have anything to do with stuff like this? Apologies if I seem too flippant. But I do sense a common thread between Karen von Hahn's column in the Globe and Mail (go read it if you haven't) and that noxious letter from the New York chapter of NOW: It's as if feminism is an either/or proposition. If you like pink ... if you are anti-abortion ... if you don't quiver with joy at the possibility of a President Hillary Clinton, then you are NOT a feminist.
Is there no room for nuance? A woman should be able to think that it's rotten that there aren't more female CEOs and that we still wipe more bottoms and mop more floors than our husbands without also feeling compelled to believe that The Man is still keeping us down because the abortion clinic gives Juno "the creeps."
Von Hahn bemoans the fact that "girls of this generation ... consider it ‘lame' to align themselves with a woman candidate on the sole ground of sisterhood." I think that represents a rousing success of the feminist movement. It tells me that women believe that it's so possible for a woman to become president that they're willing to wait for the female candidate who best represents their views.
If "sisterhood" means that I have to choose Ms. over InStyle, Hillary over John McCain, and If These Walls Could Talk over Knocked Up, then count me out.
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