In other words, a college student with the means to make her voice public?

Same reason the taller guy usually wins the presidency, the good-looking guy gets a couple free rungs on the corporate ladder...it makes other people feel good to identify with “winners” - and especially to feel that “winners” identify witih them.

Amen, fellow former cool girl.

Who cares? I get that your point is probably the same one leveled at Megyn Kelly: oh, she didn’t get it until it hit her personally...but that’s true for most of most people’s views. Some people are just born into situations that shape views, so you can’t point to a single moment or instance that brought about a…

That is not, to be sure, a trait unique to conservatives.

It changes you because you are now presented with challenges you could have never dreamed or prepared for because you never thought they wouldn’t have already been acknowledged, understood and had solutions for built in to the societal fabric.

She looks like she wants to eat him alive. She is so imagining sneaking away and fucking him in a closet during some pol soiree.

He uses her like a trusted lower-in-command is used in a business; when the higher-up doesn’t feel a meeting is worth his time, he sends a stand-in. That works many times because the higher-up isn’t really needed at that point in time and has more pressing matters - fair enough. ...Doing that to a head of state…

Have we seen any hard evidence of her actually preventing anything outrageous? I know it’s been rumored she’s been a mitigating presence, but given how much outrageous he does every.damn.day, I’m not so sure she is.

I’d say your comment is insulting (to a professional woman), but I fear it correctly reflects his view.

But you’ve fallen into the trap already: the point isn’t optics; the point is the reality. Yes, this doesn’t look good, but the more salient thing is that is absolutely, actually is not, in fact, good. As others have said already, this family doesn’t give one whit about what their actions look like. Clearly.

Fair on all counts except the reference to the infant. Mothers are allowed time, too. I theorize...I never did, and rarely do still (mine are 15 and 13), but that’s my fault.

I am going to tell you, as a law school graduate of 1994: it is just talk.

This makes me want to cry.

Scalia was better than this.

That’s bullshit, my fellow wahoo. His observations were that women were taking advantage of these poor, poor companies just for the sweet, sweet maternity leave benefits. 1. Not worth it. 2. God forbid a woman be just as canny as a man in planning her path. If you’ve never seen associates leaving in droves just…

Ugh. I was so naive going in to law school. You could have knocked me over with a feather when another (but male) law student told me that he was going to have his own firm, and when he did he would never hire women of child-bearing age. Fucker is super-successful, 20+ years later, btw.

Oh, God, yes. Par for the course.

YEP. Exactly.

I don’t know you, but I love you.