The New S&M Meme?

Was it just a coincidence that two articles in the Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post both ended with nearly the same sentence? Or, if not precisely the same phrase, at least the same sentiment? Should we be on the watch for this rhetorical device in the era of Obama?

Here is how Naomi Wolf ended her review of Jennifer Scanlon's new book, Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown (headlined "Who Won Feminism?"):

Surely we can find a way between the merely personal and the mostly political -- a synthesis of Brown and Friedan. If Michelle Obama's generation is getting closer to it, maybe Sasha's and Malia's generation will find it at last.

And then, a couple of pages later, in a symposium on whom the President might choose to succeed Supreme Court Justice David Souter, former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford said this in closing:

I hope there's a new litmus test: The court needs a broad thinker -- someone who will listen closely to the facts of cases, promote an even application of the law and not hesitate to engage fellow justices about the effect their decisions will have for future generations.

The president should be also mindful that Sasha and Malia could use another role model on the high court.

Liberals are fond of saying proposed laws to circumscribe peaceable adult conduct are "for the children." Will we, for the next four years, be stuck with the greater specificity of "for Sasha and Malia"?

Read my blog on Kindle!