Dana Goldstein: July 2010

Politics Daily legal analyst Andrew Cohen has decided that the best way to celebrate his ex-girlfriend's wedding day is to publish an essay about how much he misses her and wishes he could've been the one to marry her. You know, because this special day is all about him.

What do we know about Ms. Ex? Well, she was pretty and young and his dad liked her, and unlike most women who live in New York, she isn't a heartless career-driven shrew:

I want to thank her for being such an inspiration. She did not give in or sell out or become one of those poor women of a certain age in New York who have put their careers ahead of their lives. When we met, she was living in New York but was not of New York; transplanted from the West Coast, she had not allowed herself to be seduced entirely by the City's charms. She took from Manhattan, like so many other beautiful women do, but she never gave to it her heart and soul. She was always rooted even among the rootless of her age and time. She knew she would one day leave the City, and she did, on her own terms. I admire her for that. I respect her for that. And I love her for it.

It wasn't too long after we met that I began imagining what our wedding day would be like. My second, her first, I nonetheless pictured her not taking it too seriously, laughing off the little crises that always pop up. I pictured her stunning in her dress and with that smile that would melt me. I pictured her having a vodka and soda to ease her nerves. I pictured us laughing a lot. I pictured myself at the end of the aisle. It was not to be. I've known that for years. But that doesn't make the love any less real.

Ms. Ex, wherever you are, I'm sorry your friends and family will be furtively emailing this link to one another, relishing yet another opportunity to pity the unfortunate Cohen, when instead they should be focused on you and your fiance and your big event.

Update: I learned via Jezebel that Politics Daily's own Lizzie Skurnick was all over this train wreck yesterday. Skurnick writes:

"The present I humbly send her today is this column . . ." Nice try, cheapo. You know what a present is? A present is a gift you give someone to carry them into their future, not a big detour into the past. It's about something someone has said they'd like, not something you yourself need.

Cohen responded like the un-self aware misogynist he apparently is, castigating Skurnick for her "shrewish little column." Sigh.