I am a working mother who pumped breast milk until my daughter was 10 months old. Breast pumps are very inefficient compared to a nursing baby - it took about a half hour for me to pump 8 ounces, and my daughter usually drank 24 ounces of breastmilk while she was at daycare. All the bottles of milk I pumped I needed for my daughter when she was at daycare. I couldn't afford to give her one of those bottles while I was physically with her.

As for those who say that women should just plan better, or not go out for that long - what world do they live in? Most people, especially with families, have several errands to complete on the weekends. That means you might be out of the house for several hours, and babysitting is neither cheap nor always available at every time you need it.

As for people saying that Bill Maher is just calling for a little discretion, you're missing the point. Most nursing mothers ARE discreet, even without a blanket. (BTW, a lot of babies don't like being covered with blankets - it can get really hot under there, and they pull or kick it off). Don't believe me that breastfeeding is discreet? Look at the photos on this link and see how little you can see on the nursing moms, compared to the amount of flesh exposed in advertisements: http://mamamojo.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/breastfeeding-in-public-warning-offensive-content/

Also, many women who make extra efforts to be discreet are still harassed for nursing in public. The woman in Applebee's was in a booth in the back of the restaurant, surrounded by her family. A woman was kicked off a Delta airplane for nursing her child in the back row, in the window seat, with her husband sitting outside her. A woman who asked if she could nurse in a dressing room in Victoria's Secret (of all places!) was refused. The fact that so many women are trying to be discreet and still get harassed shows that a lack of discretion isn't the issue.

...started making up stories about Barack Obama. We had never talked to her about politics, so I assumed that she had just heard us talking about him, and liked the sound of his name. Her stories reflected her reality: such things as, "Barack Obama had to go pee-pee, but he didn't make it to the potty. He said 'Uh-oh!' and told his mommy." It cracked me up!

Then one day she was in the room when the news came one, and when Obama's face appeared, she said, "That's Barack Obama." When McCain's face was shown next, she said, "And that's not." It was only after that day, when I realized she knew who he was, that I started telling her that he was running for president, and that her father and I planned to vote or him.

...where you're coming from? You assert that Hilary Clinton's working class cred is legit, because she had jobs as a kid and has had to work with her hands at certain points in her life, and that Obama's working class cred is illegitimate or nonexistent. You suggest that weeping is elistist because he has a PhD (and that somehow, your MA is less elitist).

In another posts, you talk about people being complex, and in still another, you describe elistists as those who have three generations of college degrees in their background. Well, I don't know the figures, but I imagine that the number of Americdans with three generations or more of college degrees in their background is small indeed. A majority of college-educated Americans, I would guess, have the same complex mixture of education and labor in their background as Hilary Clinton. They may be the first or second generation in their family to attend college; they and/or their parents had to work their way through school; they probably at some point had to work in labor or non-professional jobs to make ends meet or pay for their education. This includes weeping and Obama and a whole lot of other people (including me) that you seem to consider elitist, while giving the well-educated Hilary Clinton her working class props.

If I'm misunderstanding you, please let me know. I'm not denying Clinton's background, just wondering why you seem to be denying other people's.

"In another post," "elitist," etc.

I almost never agree with what you write, but I have to admit that you're spot-on in your comment about the grandmothers. Without Madelyn Dunham and Marian Robinson, the Obama family would not be where they are today.

I took the "looks like he wandered straight off a Ralph Lauren shoot" comment to mean that he looks good in the clothes he wears, not that his clothes actually carry the Ralph Lauren label. In both the photo and the video, he seems to favor dark turtlenecks. So where are you coming up with the idea that he wears "RL white dress shirts" to demonstrations?

I don't agree with the way Graz65 expressed it, but I certainly agree with his sentiments. Obama's not the Messiah and we definitely need to see what he actually accomplishes before declaring him a great, or even good president. It's certainly your right to dislike him. However, to hope he falls on his face is pretty harsh - not because of the consequences to Obama, but because his failures will likely have terrible consequences for this country and the American people.