Lizzie Skurnick -- Politics Daily

Published: 03/2/11

The Force Is With Her: Natalie Portman's Runway Week

Say what you will for hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, 2011's Oscars were a big night for sperm. Not only did the justly feted "The Kids Are All Right" introduce audiences to the concept of the hot donor daddy, but Natalie Portman, after praising her agents, parents, and even her costumiers, wound up her speech by thanking her baby daddy straight out for the good stuff: ". . . and to my beautiful love, Benjamin Millepied, who not only choreographed my role, but has now given me my greatest role in life." It was the minor hilarity of this particular approbation that led to my cheeky ...

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Published: 12/24/10

Scrooge, George Bailey and 'Vows': Our Warring Views on True Love

Maybe it's because I've been chewing over last Sunday's "Vows" brouhaha in the New York Times at the same time I've been scouring store shelves and trimming trees, but something in the combo leads me observe that our two favorite Christmas stories -- "A Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life" -- also exemplify, if commenters are taken to heart, our country's warring ideals about marriage. Is true love about making it work, or is true love not pretending when it doesn't? We all know the problem with Ebenezer Scrooge. Not only is he mean and miserable, he delights in inflicting his ...

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Published: 07/26/10

How Not to Congratulate Your Ex on Her Wedding Day

On Saturday, CBS legal correspondent and Politics Daily contributor Andrew Cohen wrote a heartfelt tribute to the love that got away on the occasion of her wedding to someone else. I've never had an ex sing my virtues on a massively trafficked Web site, but as someone who's been dating for almost two decades, I've noticed when you date long enough, communications from male exes start to fall into charmingly distinct categories. ...

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Published: 07/5/10

Settling for Good Enough: The Atlantic's Reluctant Feminism Won Me Over

In 2008, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled for the Democratic nomination, I became a little well, impatient with the the The Atlantic. It wasn't their low-key Hillary bashing (though they did lob a few potshots while waxing rhapsodic on our current prez). It was the magazine's March 2008 issue, which featured Lori Gottlieb's essay (later expanded into a book) entitled "Marry Him," which urged desperate single women to give up their hopes for a perfect partner and "settle" for "Mr.-Not-Quite-Right." Until then, I -- like many readers -- had turned to the Atlantic for weighty ...

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Published: 06/16/10

HBO's 'Google Baby': Network of Surrogates, Egg Donors Remakes Childbearing

Almost every time I ride the Path train from New York home to New Jersey, I find myself seated across from the same ad. There's a jigsaw image of women's faces -- different races, beaming assuredly -- and the text "Become a Dreammaker!" At first it's not clear what the ad is for. (Tampax? Mutual funds? Cotton, the Fabric of Our Lives?) But, as the fine print helpfully explains, a Connecticut clinic is seeking women to be egg donors, whom they call "Dreammakers . . . because they help to make the dream of a baby come true." Until last night, I rarely considered the ad except to note that I, ...

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Published: 06/10/10

Sure, We're Marriage-Obsessed. So Why Aren't We Hearing From the Men?

In 1939, the director George Cukor gave us the campy classic "The Women." Based on the novel by Claire Booth Luce, it was the glossy saga of a sweet wife whose husband is snatched away by his shrew of a mistress -- that is, at least, until the wife grows her own talons and snatches him back. (Rent it! You will finally get the joke the next time your gay best friend extends his nails and intones, "Jungle Red!") The sly joke of "The Women" is that, though it's allegedly about a marriage, there is nary a man to be found. The all-female cast sports its gold turbans and crinoline gowns, meeting up ...

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Published: 05/2/10

Rielle, Oprah and Zen: America's Truth-Off

Since the publication of "Game Change," the revelations of a sex tape and the alarming photo accompaniment to Rielle Hunter's GQ interview, we can safely say that dirt on the John Edwards scandal has entered an era of diminishing returns. America could handle the soap-worthy battle between a cancer-ridden wife and a wanton home-wrecker, but even the most salacious viewer knows that when the lady of the house takes off her pants and kneels next to the stuffed Elmo, it's time to pick up your toys and go home. ...

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Published: 04/8/10

Rule No. 1 for Getting Media to Call You: Be a Man

Say you're a glowing 45-year-old bombshell, coasting off your first Oscar win, when suddenly, you're walloped by a piece of terrible news. Your grease-monkey husband, a tabloid darling, has been found cheating with a Swastika-bedecked pinup girl. Most of the Western world -- even those now weary of the seemingly endless parade of errant husbands and their sexting buddies -- is consumed with sympathy. (C'mon! Oscar! Swastika!) Nonetheless, it will only take a few weeks for professional sermonizer-columnist David Brooks to parry your story into a neat marital parable, on the august pages of The ...

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Published: 04/7/10

Ivy Love: Why Students Really Shouldn't Sleep With Their Professors

People are having sex at Yale? Amorously enterprising Elis everywhere must forgive me if that was my first reaction to Salon's Broadsheet columnist Tracy Clark-Flory, who pooh-poohs the university's recent prohibition against faculty at Yale having sex with any undergraduate student, not just one of their own. "That seems awfully paternalistic," Clark-Flory chides. "We are talking about legal adults, remember. Students will inevitably encounter power imbalances -- rooted in differences in age, financial status and so on -- in their personal lives . . . I fail to see how it's any of the ...

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Published: 02/8/10

Pregnancy Is Not the Public's Business

When should you have a baby? I ask not because I am planning one of my own (sorry, Mom!) or because, as I creak over the midpoint of my 30s, I can't weigh the risks and drawbacks for myself. It's not even that I care what you think. But between the Super Bowl's controversial Tim Tebow ad, Lifetime's highest-rated debut ever, "The Pregnancy Pact," Rielle Hunter's very public child-support woes, and a flood of recent other online, onscreen and on-page debates, I've finally realized that even if the question is moot (like, 20 years moot), a woman is still expected to offer it up for general ...

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