I’m one who just doesn’t like to over-interpret things, especially popular culture, as I generally like the comfort of things being just as they seem, just as they should be. But Ms. Havrilesky, if I catch her drift, seems to be on to something really quite interesting here, something that seems to support her implied thesis that no matter how banal and aesthetically painful, television does indeed unselfconsciously mirror the highs and lows of cultural and sociological evolution.

Creative writers like Ruggiero who seem to want to forge new existential territory for women and men will meet resistance from conservative systems like CBS precisely because the shot-callers at CBS are not thinking about how or who to appeal to, but are reacting unconsciously to the sense of discomfort that deviation from doxa brings, in this case deviation from legally contracted monogamy functioning to control sexual and reproductive behavior. That discomfort required reactionary tweaking of the character and story line to protect orthodoxy, to caution against the inevitable misery of “single life”, an interesting term which seems to refer to individuals who are free to engage in and disengage from intimate relationships as they see fit and learn to tolerate periods of solitude, as opposed to “married” women and men who are not at all “single” but instead enjoy the soulful connection and intimacies of another’s attentions in perpetuity, undiminished?

Some very talented writer someday will transcend the SATC ----- misery-of-singlehood dialectic to give us characters - ordinary women (and men) - who learn that emotional regulation and tolerance of solitude are learned and internal, not dependent on distraction by material consumption or even distractingly entertaining friends, whose existential courage and belief in human potential will allow them to model freedom from the fear- and scarcity-driven monogamy contracts that trade self determination for material security and social acceptance. That would be a start.

I believe you are daydreaming here. Where were Mr. and Mrs. Rational-substance-based in the lead-up to Iraq? How do you account for more than a few thousand Republican votes in any given national election?

The confused pundits are right on this one. The American Voter is conflicted over who can best return their entitlement to BigMacs-in-the-SUV-towing-the-new-speedboat, U.S. Strength, and DisneyWorld summers versus a regressive pull toward a fantasized family with a war-hero daddy and fuckable mommy who are Right with the Lord. They are sincerely torn.

I have had similar reactions to Ronnie (kind, reassuring, fatherly), Charlton Heston (hot!, strong, protective), and Henry Kissinger (totally smart, articulate and that accent!). I’m actually getting hard right now.

Seriously. Sarah, your openness to access and share inner material that might be driving this type of reaction is valuable and admirable. Keep going with that. Think about how much it stings to see a disordered, shapely bimbo elevated in status above smart, genuine women, and how good it feels to have her status knocked back down by a protective, fatherly male who can jerk Family Tears, even if he is a lie-and-cheat-through-grad-school, racist, incarcerate-the-drug-users politician.

but I have wondered whether it possible that with continued guidance and incremental change, Ms. Havrilesky’s level of writing, thought, and criticism might ever approach that of her mentor.

That would be something.

Or at least that she would never again stoop to playing to a readership amused by the likes of drug overdose and death!

to write bravely about David.

as always entertaining recommendations and as interesting a take on “Life on Mars” as Mr. reedtoon’s, I at times find myself tempted to make this medium of television available in my home.

I take an odd yet pleasurable interest in experiencing current public discourse seemingly as women’s voices as some of the most powerful deconstructions (Didion, Havrilesky, Wolf, Miller) and most disordered celebrations (Paglia, Palin, Coulter) of contemporary pathology.

Glenn, why not present your defense of Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama, and other favored politicians overtly, rather than framing it with this strawman smackdown of a lame piece on Cindy McCain (one asks rhetorically)?

My bet? Because of what you’re smart enough to know, but not yet ready to face: that personality traits, like those that appear as patterns of behavior occuring over years and adulthoods - behaviors like cheating, manipulation, disengenuousness, racist and sexist orientations, criminalization of others, religiosity and “family values” as cloaks of decency, misuse of power for personal gain, capitalist orientation to resources, engaging in class- and tribal-based aggression, and generally unprincipled acts used to gain power and status - personality traits, without years of therapeutic work, are stable.

Apart from anomolous rarities, these are the antisocial and narcissistic traits that are required, are part and parcel, of any individual’s rise to power and status in the political/legal/corporate/patriarchal hierarcies you can’t seem to quite loosen your grasp to and investment in. They are maladaptive ways of orienting to the world that can never effectively serve the collective good. Careful. It’s a house of cards.

when a lying warring militarist from Their Side eloquently allies himself with lying warring militarists on Our Side.

King/Court

Minions/Sheep

Baa/Baa

"Gen. Powell . . . has embodied our highest ideals through his long and distinguished public service." - Barack Obama (emphasis added)

Joan, is there any particular reason why you did not entitle your piece, “U.S. War Criminal Allies With Highly Favored Corporatist Militarist Candidate” ?

Just wondering.