This And That

* James Wolcott has an interesting post on how the media are treating women involved in this presidential race (Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards). This part of a superbly long paragraph about Dowd is wonderful:

What's strange about the anti-Hillary hostility is how it glosses over the fact that Mrs. Clinton has not only been elected Senator of NY, she's been reelected handsomely; MoDo stills writes about her as if she were a presumptuous, calculating upstart who just popped out of her husband's shadow rather than a politician who's proven herself a powerful vote-getter twice (and a capable officeholder). She writes as if Hillary's omnipresence were a personal affront. As Tom Watson notes, Chris Matthews's antagonism towards Hillary is even worse--it's evolved into a separate branch of pathology. I know it's rough on Chris and MoDo and Mike Barnicle and Imus and the rest, but the sad truth is that we're not going back to the prefeminist suburban paradiso when Daddy was the sole breadwinner and Julie London made sultry music on the hi-fi and a pot roast was forever being warmed in the oven by a wife waiting all day for her Galahad to pull into the driveway--what Matthews half-jestingly considers the good old days.

* Clinton on CHIP funding:

It is unconscionable that the President’s answer to our health care crisis is to cut the already strained health care safety net for our most vulnerable. The President’s plan to cut funding to states for the Children’s Health Insurance program and slash tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid is more evidence of the President’s misplaced priorities. These cuts would take us backward and only magnify our health care challenge. We need to move forward and make health care more affordable and accessible for seniors, families struggling to make ends meet and the millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans. We face a real challenge on health care that we must confront head on. This is exactly the wrong approach. I will work to stop this short-sighted scheme and instead put us on the path to making quality, affordable health care accessible to all Americans

* And on the recent U.N. report on climate change.