Anybody who's obsessing over whether HRC will "galvanize" the opposition is fighting last year's war. In the time since she's become a Senator, she may have quite a few votes under her belt that I personally wish had gone the other way -- but on the other hand, she's done everything right in terms of reaching out to moderates and rational conservatives. I just don't think it's safe to kick back and assume that the Republicans will all oppose her. Eight years ago, maybe, but not today. As far as the war vote, McCain could just as easily attack Obama for being a Monday-morning quarterback; it's easy to say how you WOULD have bet after the Giants won the Superbowl. As for me, I'm sick to death of people who think they're electing a Messiah instead of an Administrator. Every time that's happened, it's been disaster. JFK gets a free pass because of the fabled story line -- glamorous wife, tragic death, blah blah -- how would his administration hold up under current mores? Would he get a free pass for Bay of Pigs, and have the entire press corps overlook the fact that he shared an extramarital mistress with a Mafia boss? Ronald Reagan was the Messiah of the Republican party, and nobody bothered to notice the details of what was happening on his watch. Even now, people glaze over when you point out that Reagan ceased all enforcement of antitrust laws, which explains why we pay exponentially more for internet service than the average Frenchman. Gore was a boring "policy wonk" while Bush was the guy you wanted to have a beer with. How well did that one turn out? Let's get over the "rock star" treatment and start examining which candidate is smarter and better. As long as the Democratic rank and file manage to unite, McCain is beatable solely on the strength of his desire to keep US troops in Iraq for the next hundred years, coupled with his disclaimer of any understanding of how to fix the economy.

I'm so glad to find out I'm not the only one who thinks Maureen Dowd has some real Issues when it comes to women, generally, and HRC, specifically. If I were fortunate enough to have a weekly opportunity to write an op-ed column for the New York Times, I wouldn't be wasting my time dissing peoples' hairstyles or obsessing about their spouses' adultery. If HRC is NOT the candidate, what will Dowd write about -- Obama's hair style? McCain's? Unless those guys start cheating on their wives quickly, Dowd's gonna have to learn to write real commentary, or she'll have a lot of column space to fill and nothing to say.

I read the post, and clicked the link to read the article. How did they arrive at "causation" (as opposed to mere correlation)? I'm not so much bothered by their selection of mothers rather than fathers -- I'll accept their premise that more adolescent girls have intense relationship with their mothers than with their fathers.

Still, they don't explain how they come to determine that the mother's personality is "causing" the cutting. It's equally possible, and interestingly plausible, that alteration in serotonin made it difficult for these girls to respond rationally or calmly when pressed on a difficult issue, and that matters escalated from that point. Or, it's equally possible that some other imbalance caused both the drop in serotonin AND the girls' inability to remain calm with their mothers. In other words, the inability to work through difficult issues with their own mothers may itself be the symptom and not the cause.

In any case, my reaction is more to be disgusted with women who are standing by their cheating husbands. She didn't have to appear with him in public. Couldn't you argue she's really enabling this behavior? Hillary, Cindy McCain, and now Spitzer's wife... they're sure making it a lot easier for their husbands to get away with it all.

McGreevey's wife wrote an op-ed piece in today's NY Times about how she learned of her husband's secret life about a half hour before the press conference, when she was handed a copy of his speech and shoved out to stand next to him. The political world expects these men AND their wives to react in time for the 6:00 news, regardless of how much time or privacy they need to come to grips with their new reality. The Republicans in the NY State legislature didn't even give Spitzer the decency of 24 hours of privacy to consider his situation before they went off and announced they'd impeach him if he didn't resign (aren't they supposed to, you know, vote or hold some kind of trial or something first?).

If you're sick to death of women who "stand by their man", I'm sick to death of people, mostly women, who dress up gossip and speculation as pop-psychology, announcing conclusively that women are "enabling" the behavior. Unless one is in a position of confidence to one of the parties of a marriage, these statements are based on speculation, not fact. In fact, there's no evidence that ANY of these women were "enabling" their husbands. One of your examples -- Hillary Clinton -- spent the early part of her life dealing with the product of broken marriages, both personally and professionally how difficult things were made for the children of that marriage. Read the statistics for yourself -- plenty of women make this choice, and it's hardly "enabling".

Marriage is a highly complex and badly-understood relationship. Although in early years, conflict may rage about which party is more responsible for financial woes, or leaving dirty towels on the bathroom floor, or leaving dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher, as the years progress and real challenges come along, people may grow far more dependant on one another than the outsider can really appreciate.