First, if you're 30 you've entered your fourth decade, not your third.

Second, the Gottlieb claim that Hepola rightly rejects is just standard feminism in practice - make a claim, any claim, regardless of how unsupported by fact, and go with it. Here it's the patently unprovable and almost certainly false notion that all unmarried women over a certain age are panicked and desperate about the matter. How does she know? She doesn't and indeed can't, but that's her story and she's stickin' to it.

For another example, go to Judith Warner's nonsensical piece in the NYT of a couple of days ago in which she recycles the old feminist trope that men are defective because we all want women half our ages (at least the older ones of us do). Like Gottlieb, Warner cites not a whit of evidence for her claim and that turns out to be because the actual evidence directly contradicts it. (The median difference in ages for second marriage partners is 2.0 years.) But if you're a feminist like Warner, why worry? Like Gottlieb, she's got her story and...well, you get the idea.

Third, what Gottlieb and Hepola are talking about just isn't that difficult. You either want a long-term, committed relationship with another person or you don't. Gottlieb seems to, while Hepola doesn't. There's nothing necessarily wrong with either point of view. If you do want such a relationship though, you're going to have to put aside your preconceived notions about who you'd like that person to be. No one is going to fulfill all your ideals and that's not his/her job anyway. Obviously, any potential mate has to meet some minimum standards, but once that's been done, the rest is up to you. It's called loving. And the more able you are to appreciate and accept that person for who he/she is, as opposed to who you wished them to be in your adolescent fantasies, the more loving a person you are. Loving another - it's the best thing we humans do. So much of what I read suggests that not many people realize that.

as he obviously already knows, to miss no opportunity to tie McCain to Bush. Bush is a lead weight and McCain, incredibly, has done little to distance himself from the Bush disaster. So make the election a referendum on Bush. That'll work.

who detect sexism in what Obama said claim to see nothing misandric in popular culture. Amazing.

And let's not forget that Clintonism has been a disaster for the Democratic party. Bill never won a popular majority. He took office in 1992 with large Dem majorities in the House, Senate, governorships and state houses. Two years later Dems were a minority in both houses of Congress and two years later than that they'd lost their majority of governorships. The Clintons believe that triangulation is the way to win, but all it does is alienate your base, very much as you describe. The current Dem congressional majorities are solely due to Bush's incompetence, mendacity and overall awfulness, not Dem strategy.

Would Hillary Clinton be the same as Bill? I can't say, but there's not a lot to suggest she'd be different. They've always struck me as less of a married couple and more of a political team. Her votes for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, bankruptcy "reform," etc. strongly suggest that she and Bill are on the same page as triangulators. Or maybe she's just not very liberal. Whatever the case, there's every reason for liberals, be they feminists are not, to vote for someone else.

Well, whether I'm young or old depends on your point of view, but what I definitely am is liberal, and by that standard Clinton was not much of a president. You know, welfare "reform, trying to turn health care over to HMOs, NAFTA, bombing Iraq, spending 18 months of your presidency incapable of functioning because you couldn't leave the intern alone, etc.

But of course you somehow managed to miss the rather clear point of my post - that Bill was bad for the Dem party which is so demonstrably true as to be uncontroversial. I mean he was not a majority president and all the Dem majorities I mentioned evaporated under his and the DLC's leadership. It astonishes me that Democrats don't see the obvious - that Clinton's way of getting into office worked for him (only because of Perot and Buchanan), but screwed everyone else. Ask any Dem and they'll bewail the Nader effect in Florida, but they never seem to stop and think "gee, if we hadn't stampeded headlong away from our liberal base, maybe those Nader voters would have been Gore voters." It's politics 101.

about this statement so far and not one of the many people claiming that it constitutes misogyny has explained why Obama would want to alienate half (or indeed over half) the voting public. I sure can't figure it out for myself, so you'll have to help me.

There are what? 340 posts to this thread? And so far no one has explained how it's supposed to make sense for Obama to alienate half the electorate by making misogynistic remarks. As far as I can tell, he's too savvy a politician to do that. Those of you who are willing to go through the mental gymanstics required to construe his statement as demeaning to women have the burden of answering the question. Someone explain it to me; why in the world would he do such a thing?

So what you're saying is that he was sexist but didn't intend to be? That he's misogynistic but too ignorant or unself-aware to know it? And yet he was still able choose his words so carefully as to obscure the fact to a great many people, including me. You're at once crediting him with great awareness and blaming him for great ignorance. All of which is far more complicated and less likely than the statement's not being sexist in the first place.