Musings
New York Gov. Cuomo pardoned 18 people at the end of the year in an effort to push back against the increasingly harsh immigration policies coming from the White House. The 18 committed low-level offenses and have built solid lives in the years, and sometimes decades, since their convictions. They could be our neighbors.
The Profumo Affair profoundly altered British society, emboldening the press and rocking people’s faith in their leaders.
There seems to be a connection between the frat house culture and the lopsided lack of representation of women in American political life. We need more women in politics, not fewer.
When a friend or an employee speaks about this, don't ignore it. And maybe, offer to put her up, or at least back her up, until she regains her pride and sense of safety.
“This book has been a piece of performance art,” I began, “conducted for a very small audience: my two daughters.” She laughed, getting my joke.
“Never for a minute would I advocate that people who no longer love each other should live together because it does not bring the right atmosphere into a home,” she wrote.
I wonder where we will find the next generation of political leaders if we have to screen for such a panoply of character flaws. Weiner is smart, rose from humble beginnings, and can talk circles around his opposition. All, so it seems now, gone to waste.
I don't begrudge Ivanka for enjoying her job. I enjoy mine (most of the time). But let's not pretend that the vast majority of women don't have more practical problems.
A: These were all intelligent, accomplished, articulate women. It seemed off to me that they would play this subservient role to rescue their husbands’ careers.
For organizations that encourage and train women to run for political office, this has been a very busy four months since Election Day.
Trump’s visit cast her as nurturing and selfless, with little risk. No tyke was going to pop up and ask whether she had permission to quote Dr. Seuss.
“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much” -- Jackie Kennedy in a 1959 interview with NBC TV
Jacqueline Kennedy was by turns pragmatic and bereft about her husband’s seemingly compulsive sex outside of their marriage.
To whom did Huma look for this example? Her mentor Hillary Clinton. “At the end of the day,” Abedin has said of the senior woman’s advice, “every woman should have the ability and the confidence and the choice to make whatever decisions she wants to make that are right for her and not be judged by it.”
From mapping a path to power to laudable notions of holding the family together, "Why They Stay" examine the uniquely challenging Faustian bargains that political wives grapple with.
In the end, it probably wasn’t Huma Abedin’s injured wifely feelings that ended her marriage so much as her professional pride.
This is an early sketch for the cover of Why They Stay. Our team chose this from about 9 or 10 images as the one that most closely conveys a woman ambivalently tied to her husband -- even as the husband continues to thrive in politics.
In The Good Wife, the fictional Alicia Florrick sells their beautiful suburban home, downsizes to an urban apartment and begins work at a law firm. Her reasons for staying married to Peter unfold.
Real-life political couples have learned to perform for the media and, at the same time, to distrust media reports. They turn intensely inward toward each other and a few close advisers for counsel. They lose touch with what's considered normal in marriage.
So, where did Roof acquire his racial hatred? He was active in an online white supremacist community.
We’re at an unprecedented moment in our unwillingness to listen to each other or to recognize our shared humanity. Cocktail party chatter is kept consciously anodyne. Where is the bottom of this spiral of coarsening culture?