Why do so many smart women get mixed up with the wrong men? By all accounts, Shaha Ali Riza seems like an incredibly intelligent and successful women. Educated at the London School of Economics and done gone to Oxford for International Relations. Senior Communications Officer (and acting manager of external affairs) for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at the World Bank, she speaks at least five languages and is a noted supporter of women’s rights in the Arab world. Immediately before joining the World Bank, she worked at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she led the endowment’s Middle East programs. Yet, evidence indicates that in the affairs of the heart, she was not quite so proficient. This daughter of Libyan and Syrian parents fell for Paul Wolfowitz, the bad boy son of Polish Jewish immigrants. They first met in the early 1990s while each was married. By 2001, both had divorced, and though rumors flew, it wasn’t until 2005 that that “RizaWitz” was a sure item.

I spent the night at a Debate Watching Potluck Extraveganza, so called by the hostess who is leading a local New Hampshire push for the election of Barack Obama, and the mood was...decidedly quiet. Despite the abundant food, adequate watering, and comfortable seating, I found myself biting an imaginary wooden spoon as the candidates hem'd-and-haw'd through a number of uncomfortable questions put to them by the inimitable Brian Williams. Obama started two lengths back and never quite caught up with Hillary, God help us all, who was on cue, on message, and on time with every question that came her way. (Did she not look just a teensy bit like Elisabeth I with that huge faux-pearl necklace?)

After lamenting in my last post about the lack of women heroes in the military, Ms. Jessica Lynch has gone on record along with the family of deceased Army soldier Pat Tillman, to denounce the military's propaganda machine and debunk what were perhaps the last myths hanging by a golden thread from the war in Iraq.

Those of you who read my blog know I’m no war-hawk. However, as a part-time reservist I sometime wrestle with my inner-Patton. Both of my novels deal with the issue of being a woman in the military and, consequently, what it’s like to live under a spotlight and have all of your actions reflect on every other woman in uniform. We’ve had some doozies. Anybody remember Lieutenant Kelly Flynn, for example? And we have two new hall-of-famers—US Air Force Colonel Lisa Nowak and British Royal Navy Leading Seaman Fayne Turney—to make the rest of us look, er, like we’re wearing shoes we can’t quite fill.

By now, the 15 British troops held captive by Iranian forces should be on their way home. I'm glad to see them safe and well, but what should have been a political scandal for the Iranians may well have turned into a victory.