I just got around to reading Dave Barry's convention coverage. Here's one of my favorite passages, about the possibility of electing a woman to a high political office:
One ''hot-button'' issue is whether a woman with young children could be a good president and still handle her domestic obligations, or would she become conflicted, so that, say, if the Russians were getting ready to launch nuclear missiles at us, and the president was supposed to get on the Hot Line, she would instead be seized by an uncontrollable maternal instinct to make a pediatrician appointment.Posted by Jen at September 5, 2008 5:42 PMI don't know about Palin. But I do know this: women in general are WAY better at work/home multi-tasking than -- to pick another gender at random -- men. I base this statement on my wife, who recently was in Beijing, reporting on the Olympics, while I was at home, theoretically getting our 8-year-old daughter ready for third grade. We had several phone calls like this:
MY WIFE (answering her phone while typing a story on an extremely tight deadline in a very loud sports arena): Hello?
ME: Hey, sorry to bother you, but I can't find the...
MY WIFE (typing): It's in the drawer under the kitchen phone.
ME: Ah! Thanks. Also, which...
MY WIFE (typing): Her pink sneakers.
ME: OK, I know you're busy, so I'll let you...
MY WIFE (typing): You have a booger poking out of your right nostril.
So I think it's time for the voters, Republicans and Democrats alike, to set this whole ''Mommy Wars'' issue aside and agree that what qualifies a person to be president of the United States is NOT that person's gender or domestic situation. What qualifies a person to be president of the United States is whether or not that person is my wife.