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What's in a Wife?

Hillary Holdouts: Don't Come Running Home on My Account

I do not agree, however, that "a vote for McCain is a vote to overturn Roe.'' Or assume, as you say you do, that the Hillary Holdouts "don't care'' if Roe is overturned. Of course they worry about that possibility—and in the end will probably be frightened into returning to the Democratic fold on that basis. But though an entire industry exists to argue otherwise, to keep us afraid and divided and donating, Roe is not going to be overturned. And putting all our energy into either warding off that constant threat or keeping alive that constant hope is not just fighting the last war; it's fighting a phony war, one that continues to distract and drain us but effectively became theater a long, long time ago.

Case in point: In Evansville, Ind., where my parents live, there have been banner headlines this week about the latest local abortion fight—in a county where (in theory, anyway) no abortions are performed. Under cover of darkness, i.e., without any public input, the Vanderburgh County Commissioners passed an ordinance that would force abortion providers, if there were any, to have hospital-admitting privileges in case something went wrong and to give patients info about where to get follow-up care in case of complications. Indiana Planned Parenthood strongly protested and put out this statement: "No abortions are performed in Vanderburgh County. There are no facilities and there are no providers ... it appears as if the commissioners took action to fix a problem that does not exist ... This type of regulation does nothing to improve health care in our state. It just further restricts a woman's ability to make decisions about her own future.'' An editorial in today's Evansville Courier & Press suggested that the real goal was purely political; one of the Republican commissioners, who is up for re-election, was trying to look like a hero to his peeps in his race against a pro-life Democrat.

On the national level, do you think John McCain meant it back in 1999 when he said he wouldn't bother trying to overturn Roe? ("In the short term, or even the long term,'' he said then, "I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.") Or does he mean it when he says now that overturning Roe will be a priority in a McCain White House? The moment I wrote about last week, describing McCain in the fall of 2000 looking out the window in embarrassment as Lindsey Graham and I got into a whole big discussion about when life begins, convinced me that he would rather eat worms than hear the word abortion. Bush v. Gore made plain that the Supreme Court IS a political body, and politically, the Republican Party has no, I repeat, no interest in overturning Roe.

The perceived enemy of choice has changed, too, when a lot of you either weren't looking or didn't want to see: Even many self-described pro-lifers—and that term means different things to different people, believe me—have shifted the focus away from changing the law to changing the moral consensus and addressing material needs. When the conservative but pro-Obama jurist Doug Kmiec says that "merely reversing a single court decision such as Roe ... as best I can tell, would directly save no unborn life,'' he speaks for a lot of us who see the conversation we've been stuck having as an incredibly narrow way to look at "life issues.''

I think we can probably agree that criminalizing abortion would not stop it but would radically alter the political terrain to the benefit of the, to my mind, often anti-life GOP. And as a Colorado pro-life Democrat named Chris Rose told me for my book on women voters—which, for the record, gives equal time to both pro-life and pro-choice voters—the Republican Party can't end abortion: "Ending abortion isn't something they know how to do, because that would require an enormous change in our country and in our government,'' including programs to help women provide for their children and avoid unwanted pregnancies. "If you believe government can't do anything right, then you can't end abortion.''

So Hillary fans: Don't come running home on my account. It's your party, you can cry if you want to. But don't cry to me if, for thousands of reasons other than Roe, the result is not quite as satisfying as you'd hoped. For the lady in the attic, there is never a happy ending.

Curves Ahead

... And She's So Hot!

Are we allowed to say that here? Watching Rachel Maddow sets my heart aflutter. And not just me, apparently! I hear that she attracts across almost all persuasions--straight and gay, women and men. Especially when she's allowed to appear, as in the photo below, without that silly lip gloss and diminishing eye shadow.

Rachel: Call me any time, day or night.

To be on the show, of course. I'm a smart talker. And I know lotsa stuff.

Who Can Turn the World On With Her Smile?

Gay for Rachel

The End of the Snarly Barbie?

Props to Rachel Maddow for scoring her own primetime show. And props to MSNBC for recognizing and rewarding monster talent. Maddow is whip-smart, funny, original, and living proof that women needn't spit and hiss to succeed on TV. May the road rise up to meet her. 

More on Sweaty T-Shirts

Meghan, I checked out that T-shirt sniffing study you flagged, and, well, it hardly implies a crisis for pill-users – or a pink slip for novelists.

To recap: The researchers asked women to rate the smells of T-shirts worn by different men. For each woman, they chose three men who were more genetically similar (in terms of a specific set of genes) and three men who were less similar. The genes in question were part of the major histocompatibility complex, or MHC, which plays a crucial role in immune function and is also linked to body odor (possibly because of interactions between the immune system and skin bacteria). The researchers found that when women began taking birth control pills, their smell preferences shifted somewhat toward men with more similar MHC profiles, though the difference was not huge.

Why might this matter? In the past, some research found that women tended to prefer the smell of men whose MHC makeup differed more extensively from their own. That result remains controversial, but from an evolutionary perspective, it makes for a good story. When women mate with less similar men, their kids may have more robust immune systems that can better fend off a wide range of diseases. In theory at least, that advantage may have helped to shape women’s tastes over time. As for the pill, if it were to skew preferences toward MHC similarity, women might smile on less genetically favorable partners, leading to problems in the long run. When women stop taking the pill, for instance, their tastes might shift again, resulting in “the breakdown of relationships," as one researcher speculated. Hence the maelstrom about women choosing the “wrong” men.

Strikingly, however, the current study fails to confirm the premise of that whole story. When women smelled men's T-shirts at the outset, before any of them took the pill, they showed no preference for men with more MHC difference. That is, they did not exhibit the supposed tendency that the pill supposedly disrupts. What’s more, when women taking the pill smelled the T-shirts again, they showed no preference for men with more MHC similarity. Yes, the pill-takers tended to rate the smell of MHC-similar men more favorably than they had before. But to repeat: They still didn’t prefer the similar guys overall. Despite the hype, then, this study’s findings are limited – and pretty messy.

Of course smell can play a role in romance. And the scent of MHC difference could turn out to be one factor – of many – that influences women’s choices. But really, when it comes to searing insight into longing and romantic crisis, T-shirt sniffing has nothing on Flaubert.

Six Cheers for Natalie Coughlin

But if there was anything that disappointed me about the Olympics swimming coverage, it's that Natalie Coughlin's own remarkable feat—winning six medals in six events for the U.S. women—went comparably unnoticed by NBC's commentators. Granted, her haul of one gold, two silvers, and three bronzes wasn't as impressive as Phelps', but she swam an ambitious program and has never finished out of the medals in 11 Olympic events (she also swam in 2004).

Swimming has always been my favorite Olympic sport. I was a less-than-mediocre age-group swimmer growing up, and I still fondly remember coming home from swim practice each day, making a sandwich, and plopping down in front of the TV to watch the 1984 Olympics. What made the swimming in those Games so fun to watch was that the women's team had just as much success and enjoyed just as much attention as the men. Tracy Caulkins, Carrie Steinseifer, and Mary T. Meagher (and Dara Torres, of course) were just as famous for those two weeks as Rowdy Gaines, Rick Carey, and Steve Lundquist. And from then up through the 2000 Games, the U.S. swimming medal count has been roughly divided between the men's and women's teams. In the last two Olympics, though, our men's teams have been considerably more successful than the women, even if you adjust for Phelps' out-of-this world performances. I can't know the cause, and it might be an anomaly. But here's my suggestion: Speedo, it's great that you rewarded Michael Phelps with a $1 million bonus for his eight golds. But how about ponying up an equal amount to USA Swimming to further develop our talented young female swimmers?

Yes They Can

For now, the whole discussion about Hillary supporters and which way they'll jump feels to me like a giant exercise in conjecture. There's Melinda's still-bitter friend, and PUMA (John Dickerson translation: Party Unity My Ass). And then there's this Friend of Hillary with her "Yes We Can" pin. We'll know something more when we see a good poll of women in Ohio or Virginia, I suppose (though to really answer the question, the poll would have to zero in on Democratic women who voted in the primaries). And of course, we won't really know how this plays out until November. But whatever former Clinton supporters actually decide, in whatever numbers, the idea that you don't vote for Obama because he's the popular guy who stole the election from the diligent gal makes sense only if you don't care what that guy, compared with his opponent, would do once in office. Maybe that's fine for student body president. But for the real deal? As the Friend of Hillary above says, "There is not a hair's breadth of difference between Hillary's position on the issues I care about most deeply and Obama's." Agree. Disagree. But don't change the subject, at least for more than 10 minutes, in Denver or in your living room.

Five Puppies and a Sex Slave

Meghan, I'm curious about that T-shirt sniffing, too, and am trying to get hold of the actual paper. In the meantime, I confess, I've been riveted by another tale that features some modicum of science but also five puppies, a Mormon sex slave, and (possibly) a three-legged horse. So, turning for a moment from birth control to copious reproduction ...

Last week, a woman named Bernann McKinney received five puppies that had been cloned from her dear, departed pit bull, Booger. This was apparently the first time a canine had been cloned for commercial purposes, and McKinney was photographed frolicking on the floor, hugging and squeezing one of the pups (whom she called "mini-Boogers"), and telling them, "Yes, I know you! You know me, too!"

Unfortunately for her, someone watching the spectacle also recognized her as a fugitive whose real name was Joyce. According to the Associated Press, in 1977, Joyce McKinney "became a British tabloid sensation over a kidnapping case. She faced charges of unlawful imprisonment after she was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice." Another account, which likens McKinney (weirdly) to John Edwards, features velvet handcuffs and has her posing "as a deaf-mute actor to escape to Canada."

McKinney is also wanted in Tennessee, it turns out, for "criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary" in 2004. "Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house," the AP reports. Her attorney explains she "needed the money to help her three-legged horse." She wished to buy the horse (seriously) a fake leg.

So where is McKinney now?  Is she on the lam with five puppies and a four-legged horse? Will she ever explain what insatiable drive led her to buy five clones of a beloved pet (let alone one)?

The South Korean company that did the cloning, meanwhile, is not backing down and seems, in fact, to sense opportunity. The head of the company says "criminal records will not disqualify future customers." Indeed, "cloned animals could even help them find stability and thus prevent crimes." I'll gladly stay tuned. 

Are Birth Control Pills Ruining Your Love Life?

Has anyone been reading about this new U.K. study examining how the birth control pill affects women's choice of sexual partners? As one CBS headline crudely puts it, women on the pill allegedly choose "the wrong partner." That's because, as the authors of the study argue, women NOT on the pill are generally "attracted to men whose genetic makeup differs from their own" which "increases the chances for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby," as CBS put it. But women on the pill seem to choose partners who are genetically similar to themselves. I can't quite tell how they've determined this, but it has to do with something called MHC genes, which affect immune responses, and smelling T-shirts.  As CBS puts it: "In laboratory studies, women who sniff men's sweaty T-shirts find them more attractive when they come from men whose MHC genes don't match  theirs. It's not that certain MHC genes smell better to women -- it's the difference that counts."

On the pill, however, this seems to change, and it has, according to a number of scientists, a lot of implications for relationships going forward, because apparently women who are with men who have similar genetic material get dissatisfed quickly and search for new sex partners. (It's not your hair, honey, or the fact that you don't do the dishes, it's your MHC genes.) But do these kind of studies really tell us very much? Are our sex and romantic lives really so genetically deterministic that we can make predictions based on smelling a man's T-shirt? (God, that would have saved a lot of novelists some trouble.) I'd love to know what some of our more scientifically trained XXFactor bloggers have to say, because the study and the conclusions being drawn raised all sorts of questions for me. It's times like these when you wish more journalists understood biology, because the pieces I've read on this story seem, in general, very crude. 

Sober Reflections on "Closure"

I’m with Melinda on this one Emily. I’ve always believed that "closure" and "catharsis" are pretty much just empty words one generally uses to justify sleeping with ex-boyfriends after the fifth glass of wine. The mere fact that Clinton insists this roll call will be cathartic, just as Obama asserts that’s not the point at all, highlights the deep disconnect here. Not all symbolism is empty. But symbolism is not always enough, either.

That said, I found myself longing for a strong shot of Hillary as the first swiftboats were launched this week. As Tim Noah has pointed out, watching the conservative imprints of reputable publishing houses float "books" comprised of lies braided to racial and religious stereotype and innuendo is like being dragged back to the wretched Groundhog Day of 2004. And watching the media sputter "But ... these books aren’t true!" is almost worse. I can’t help but feel that Clinton would have matched kidney punch for kidney punch with Corsi and his ilk. She knows better than anyone that there just no “rising above it” to be done, when there’s no depth to which your opponents won’t sink.

When You Call My Name, It's Like a Little Prayer

Fiddle faddle, Emily; placing Hillary's name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention will not lead to the "catharsis'' she keeps talking about, and I'm not positive that catharsis is the goal.

Long ago and far away, I rode a bus to Tlacotalpan, in Veracruz, Mexico, for their winter Candelaria Festival, primarily to dance all night and see the running of the bulls. But the most memorable thing about the trip was the yearly ritual in which the townspeople carry a crowned and silk-gowned statue of the Virgin Mary (the Candelaria Virgin) out of the church and through the streets on a little platform, as a huge and completely frenzied crowd cheers, waves at the statue, reaches out and runs after her. They throw flowers, too, and when they put her on a barge to take her for her annual ride up and down the river, some people fall into the water while trying to lay hands on her hem. And yes, what I'm saying is: They could carry Hillary Rodham Clinton into Denver like that and still not satisfy those supporters who have decided to stay mad.

Case in point (and why I was already thinking so Virgin-ally about all this): I run into a Hillary supporter I know in the drug store the other day, and she tells me she still hasn't taken down the Hillary shrine "complete with votive candles'' that she has in her house. Ha ha, I say, but no, she says, she is not kidding. Now, first of all, I love that this gal gives enough of a hoot about our country to get emotionally involved on that level; she worked her heart out for her candidate, and good for her. Clearly, we'd be better off if more people gave of themselves so passionately. When I ask what Obama would have to do to win her over, what she says first is that he'd have to adopt Hillary's health care plan. But by the end of the conversation, we get to the real bottom line, which is that she just doesn't like Obama, sees him as a total poser and nothing-burger who swooped in from nowhere and stole the thing, and all the health care reform in the world is not going to change that. At this point, she's thinking seriously about staying home on Election Day. She is not going to wake up the morning after Hillary's name is placed in nomination and have a whole new lease on Obama. And my guess is, Hillary knows that.

Calling Clinton's Delegates

Born in the USA? Prove It.

Cover-Up Accounting

I agree with Rachael and think that unequal hush installments were not only sexist, the distributions were too small. Don't you think $15,000 and $20,000 a month seems measley for the sacrifice Hunter and Young's family were making in their personal lives? 

Were the payments to go on indefinitely, one wonders, or simply until Hunter would be eligible to become the second Mrs. de Winter?

Well, That's Sexist

Rielle Hunter had to spend nine months pregnant and an unreported number of hours in labor before she could milk John Edwards' supporters for $15,000 a month (allegedly).

If the New York Post is to be believed (and why not, at this point?), all Andrew Young had to do before he could milk John Edwards' supporters was claim he fathered little Frances Quinn. And he's getting $20,000 (allegedly).

Ladies, what do we have to do to break the political-scandal glass ceiling?

(hat tip: InstaPundit)

How To Spot a Cheater With His Clothes On

I Can't Turn Away Just Yet!