Donna Brazile to marriage concern trolls:
Perhaps, if I’d had Ms. Patton’s wisdom and foresight about what really matters in college, I wouldn’t have taken so many pesky classes, and instead concentrated on designing my hair, makeup, attire and personality to create the perfect man-catching machine.
Perhaps it would have all worked out exactly as Ms. Patton implies — the perfect house, kids, husband and future. And yet I’m skeptical. I made a lot of stupid decisions in college; I’m really glad the choice of life partner wasn’t one of them. How many people, do you think, could choose a tattoo at 22 years old and still be happy with it by the time they are 50? Let’s be generous here: maybe a quarter of all people? And tattoos don’t even talk.
. . . . .
I find it refreshing that as the same-sex marriage debate swirls through society, Ms. Patton remains untouched in her heteronormativity. Does it even occur to her to question the premise that “the cornerstone” of a woman’s future is finding a husband? No! Of course not! It simply must be. I haven’t heard regressive rhetoric like this since I mistakenly tuned in Dr. Laura on the radio.
I have to ask, what are lesbians supposed to do? Must they also find mates while in college, or are lesbians the only privileged group of women allowed to search for self-fulfillment before partnership?
It’s like clockwork: 10 years after Lisa Belkin’s silly “opting out” essay gets people all riled up about the supposedly “limited” options that women with Ivy League educations have, we have this from the mother-in-law you’re glad isn’t yours! Ugh.
I think it’s time to provide a link to one of my all-time favorites from this blog: All the Single Ladies.
Historiann 
Oddly, I have not sent that letter on to the daughter of a friend at the university in question! As someone who was actually a student there at more or less the same time as the mother ( and mother-in-law) from hell I can tell you why I didn’t choose to marry one of my classmates: we weren’t ready – and my longest relationship with a classmate ended when it turned out that I was really serious about my career. And we were much too immature to figure it out.
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Although Brazile is generally a useless political hack, one of her redeeming features is her hilarious razor sharp wit.
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Oh man, was that Lisa Belkin? That *was* a silly essay. Somehow I’m not surprised.
And personally, I think not marrying a douche is more important than getting married, but I understand people have different preference sets.
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Funny, the first thing I did was check to see if this was published April 1st.
Ms. Patton just hurled Princeton into the august Bishop Rock Island
League of Correspondence Schools. I’ll say one thing, she is certainly doing double duty, representing not just Princeton, but the glorious State of New Jersey, nice hair, by the way.
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Agreed with CPP about Donna Brazile. I don’t admire her life in politics but would enjoy having a beer with her.
As for Susan Patton, apparently she just got divorced and regrets having chosen a spouse who didn’t go to Princeton. Maybe she’s right that men of that school are uniquely fab (although my n=1 among past boyfriends doesn’t support the inference). If so, how about saying keep in touch, go to reunions, hang at the Princeton Club etc. to the straight women of Princeton not ready to marry at 22?
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Meh, I think some of you are too hard on her. There must be political hacks in this world, so why not Donna B.? I’ve forgiven her for dumping HC for BHO in late 2007 or early 2008. (Besides, she was probably right!) I thought this was hilarious, especially because of her rumored lesbianism & perspective as an African American woman when black women are much likelier not to have husbands at all.
But, if we can distract privileged women by getting them to worry more about finding a husband instead of crushing their classes and making lots of fantastic professional connections, then it’s a WIN for patriarchal equilibrium right? (And they’ll have done all of the heavy lifting themselves, the poor dears!)
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I loved the bit about the highest concentration of men worthy of these women being at Princeton (and their age or older, I noted – no snapping up those younger men, you wizened old spinster-types!).
Aren’t I lucky that I didn’t attend Princeton, I thought – I’d have cracked under the pressure to nab me a husband on time. Since I went to an undistinguished Midwestern state school, I felt no such pressure to grab me a man along with my B.A. Whew!
I was only sorrowful when I realized that the original article wasn’t satire but Brazile’s lovely lambasting makes up for that disappointment.
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“Maybe she’s right that men of that school are uniquely fab (although my n=1 among past boyfriends doesn’t support the inference). If so, how about saying keep in touch, go to reunions, hang at the Princeton Club etc. to the straight women of Princeton not ready to marry at 22?”
No she’s dead wrong and such comments actually sounds like the Donna Brazile that I remember and the reason why I know longer identify as a democrat.
I also didn’t go to Princeton, but a similar elitist institution that while I appreciate aspects of the intellectual rigor, didn’t enjoy the over all experience. Far too many elite and privileged white males and women who pander to them. If you need to get married how about joining the Peace Corps or working at a non profit doing amazing things to meet amazing people doing amazing things?
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Saying that Donna Brazile is a political hack misses the point. She stands for much worse. When Hillary run in 2008, Brazile spewed more poison than a cobra, hate more than the Tea Party and lies more than on April fools. She also screwed Gore as his campaign manager.
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koshembos
exaggerate much? She’s no worse than the rest of them and can’t touch and started out with much less and lets see, (reading a long list) Bill Clinton screwed Gore, Ralph Nader screwed Gore, I, and every body else who voted for Ralph Nader screwed Gore, now Donna Brazile screwed Gore? Poor Poor Al Bore -opps- I meant Al Gore. Maybe he should get a casino and forty acres and a mule? He’s just a victim instead of going to see the wizard to get courage, a brain, and a heart, he went to see Joe” Lieberman for some good old fashion “morals”, you know restore morality to the white house and American politics, or something like that.
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I’ve forgiven her for dumping HC for BHO in late 2007 or early 2008. (Besides, she was probably right!)
Seriously, she was right? Will you stick to that when Obama starts to hack away at Social Security and Medicare?
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Princeton has a certain cultish devotion among current students and particularly alumni that I’ve never encountered before or since, even at comparably elite schools. Maybe it’s because of the small size and focus on undergrads relative to peers like Harvard or Stanford, but whatever the reason it doesn’t surprise me in the least that a Princeton alumna would believe only her fellow alumni were worthy of her romantic attentions. (But yes, LadyProf, the very high rate of intra-Princeton marriages/partnerships is due to the surreal experience that is Reunions, not to getting together in undergrad.)
Personally, I had zero dating experience until I *left* Princeton (for grad school at another elite university, to be sure) and started to meet people who had experienced more of the world than the university bubble.
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Sweet Sue: Brazile was right in that BHO became the nominee & won the presidency. And let’s not forget: Al Gore won the popular vote as well as the close vote in Florida, had the SCOTUS let the recount continue. She was the campaign manager for the WINNING campaign in 2000, but Karl Rove, who couldn’t sell a Republican governor with a legacy name to the American people, was credited with being the big political genius of the early 2000s.
Talk about affirmative action for white men–Bush and Rove alike!
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As I’m recalling, Brazile was the one who got hold of Gore on his *Blackberry* (I had never even heard of Blackberry at that point, and would have described “Research in Motion” as some sort of a Canadian hockey scouting service) as his limousine approached the place where he was going to make his graceful concession speech: (“I just placed a call to President-elect Bush, and told him I would be…) and got him to turn around because the late votes were trending toward a Gore lead. So whatever else she did or didn’t do in that campaign, she certainly spared him that nightmare, the “unconcession” press release.
Blackberries were all the rage in the Gore camp that year. My idea of a smart phone then was one whose dial would light up when you picked up the receiver on the nightstand in the midnight hours.
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