In one word, what America desperately needs America desperately needs a woman president. I thought that in church Sunday as we sang, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you,” a gorgeous hymn with a chorus of Alleluias, and the altos around me sounded like my old aunts, and the teenage acolytes, both girls, stood up so straight and solemn, holding candles, as a woman priest read the Gospel. Two days before, I sent my friend Heather off with her one-year-old daughter at 6 a.m. and put her into a cab with a stroller, fold-up crib, big suitcase, utility bag, and purse, and strong-minded toddler, to go to the airport and fly home to New York. The night before, she sang at a big jazz club downtown, tossing off Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Lennon-McCartney, and now she arose cheerfully, packed up, headed out the door, no sweat. It was a glimpse of heroic competence such as few men could manage. Barack Obama, yes. The current guy? Oh my God. Have you ever seen him carrying a child? Can you even imagine it? Him changing a diaper? No way. Standing at a lectern and hollering about injustice is an act; motherhood requires discipline and commitment. But we Democrats have a 78-year-old Vermont socialist with a bum ticker knocking on the door. We desperately, desperately need a woman president but Liz is too robotic and Amy is too Midwestern. She’s running for president but she sounds like she’s running for county commissioner. She lacks poetry. I am fond of Bernie, being 77 and retro myself, but I tell you: a man our age belongs in a glass case; he is fighting the battles of yesteryear. He reminds me of the men who picked me up when I was 16, hitch-hiking home, and they wanted someone to listen to them, so I did. They were angry at the government, their bosses, and their wife, and for twenty miles they unloaded. They stopped at my road and I thanked them, but I wouldn’t have elected them president. Read the rest of the column >>> | 