All the President's Women
I hope President Bush doesn't have any more office wives tucked away in the White House.
There are only so many supremely powerful jobs to give to women who are not qualified to get them.
The West Wing is a parallel universe to TV's Wisteria Lane: instead of self-indulgent desperate housewives wary of sexy nannies, there are self-sacrificing, buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W.'s every political, legal and ego-affirming need.
Maybe it's because his mom was not adoring enough, but more tart and prickly, even telling her son, the president, not to put his feet up on her coffee table. Or maybe it's because, as his wife says, his kinship with his mom gives him a desire to be around strong, "very natural" women. But W. loves being surrounded by tough women who steadfastly devote their entire lives to doting on him, like the vestal virgins guarding the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation.
First he elevated Condi Rice to secretary of state, even though she had bungled her job as national security adviser, failing to bring a sense of urgency to warnings about terrorism aimed at America before 9/11, and acting more as an enabler than honest broker in the push to invade Iraq.
But what were these limitations, considering the time the workaholic bachelorette logged at W.'s side in Crawford and Camp David, coaching him on foreign affairs, talking sports with him, exercising with him, making him feel like the most thoughtful, farsighted he-man in the world?
Then he elevated his longtime aide, speechwriter, memoir ghostwriter and cheerleader Karen Hughes to undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, even though it is exceedingly hard for the 6-foot Texan to try and spin a billion Muslims whom she doesn't understand the first thing about.
But who cares about her lack of expertise in such a critical job, as long as the workaholic loyalist continues to make her old boss feel like the most thoughtful, farsighted he-man in the world?
And now he has nominated his White House counsel and former personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, to a crucial swing spot on the Supreme Court. The stolid Texan, called "Harry" by some old friends, is a bachelorette who was known for working long hours, sometimes 16-hour days, and was a frequent guest at Camp David and the Crawford ranch, where she helped W. clear brush.
Like Ms. Hughes and Laura Bush, she's a graduate of Southern Methodist, and she has always been there for W. In 1998, during his re-election race for governor, Harry handled the first questions about whether Mr. Bush had received favorable treatment to get into the Texas Air National Guard to avoid the draft. Though the former Democrat once gave a grand to Al Gore in '88, she passed the loyalty test for W. during the Bush v. Gore standoff in 2000, when she recruited conservative lawyers to work for the Bush scion in Tallahassee.
But who cares whether she has no judicial experience, and that no one knows what she believes or how she would rule from a bench she's never been behind, as long as the reason her views are so mysterious is that she's subordinated them to W.'s, making him feel like the most thoughtful, farsighted he-man in the world?
David Frum, the former White House speechwriter and conservative commentator, reported on his blog that Ms. Miers once told him that W. was the most brilliant man she knew.
Bushie and Harriet share the same born-again Christian faith, which they came to in midlife, deciding to adopt Jesus Christ as their saviors. The Washington Post reported that she tithes to the Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, "where antiabortion literature is sometimes distributed and tapes from the conservative group Focus on the Family are sometimes screened," and where, when she returns, Ms. Miers asks well-wishers to pray for her and the president.
Born Catholic, she switched to evangelical Christianity in her mid-30's and began to identify more with the Republicans than the Democrats, The Times reports today; she joined the missions committee of her church, which opposed legalized abortion, and one former political associate said that Ms. Miers told her she had been in favor of a woman's right to have an abortion when she was younger, but that her views hardened against abortion once she became born again.
W. is asking for a triple leap of faith. He has faith in Ms. Miers as his lawyer and as a woman who shares his faith. And we're expected to have faith in his faith and her faith, and her opinions that derive from her faith that could change the balance of the court and affect women's rights for the next generation.
That's a little bit too much faith, isn't it?
7 Comments:
At 12:13 AM, Anonymous said…
Well, he can always take the Clinton approach to women: rape them.
At 1:10 PM, A. J. Franklin said…
real lefty, who did President Clinton rape? If you are going to post on this or any blog, don't spout nonsense, please.
The charges of rape were as manufactured as was the entire impeachment process. We need to get rid of the son of a bitch we have in there now, who has sent our family and friends to die in Iraq, and cares nothing about killing over 50,000 Iraqis--by conservative estimates.
AJ
At 4:51 PM, Anonymous said…
A.J.,
There were a string of very credible rape and harrasment charges against Bill Clinton. These go back decades, even involving campus police reports at Oxford. I would never bring up something that was not backed up by pages and pages of credible sources.
Unlike you, I'm afraid. The 50, 00 estimate is outlandish. I refer to Fred Kaplan on slate.com. Kaplan is staunchly anti-wat, but recognizes the need for accuracy. It's all there for you to read. And you'll do better to blame American deaths on the Jihadists and Baathists who have targeted them.
At 5:10 PM, Anonymous said…
http://www.now.org/press/02-99/02-25-99.html
That's from NOW. I'd think twice before calling them manufacturers. Do not fear the truth A.J..
At 6:23 PM, A. J. Franklin said…
Did you read the article at your link, anonymous? I totally agree with what NOW said early on, but later, after February of 1999, Ms. Broddrick backed off of her claims, and then glommed on to them again.
I sure don't want to rehash all of that. But the charges against Bill Clinton remind me of the cocaine charges against Bush: thrown out there without firm evidence for conspiracy freaks to accept or reject.
I overstated the number of dead civilian Iraqis. the site http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ says there is probably less than 30,000.
I can't imagine a figure that low, but I will play by my own rules and use real figures from a good organization.
No matter which figures you like to see, the fact remains that these are deaths that were the result of Bush's lies and the hunt for WMD...which has transformed the land of Babylon into a living hell. There is blood on your hands if you are any part of American society. We own this government. It doesn't dictate to us...we dictate to IT. But a tyrant will use any excuse to take his country to war. Doesn't that scare you?
You should not give any government lackey, especially W, the right to use our military for his manufactured lies. When will the bastard stop moving the goal post?
It is a disaster by any scorecard, and the son of a bitch doesn't intend on pulling out. His "speech" today claimed that we might be there for a long time--calling his insanity the 'war on terror.'
You don't really believe there is such a thing, do you?
Would we have lost 2,000 more Americans to the "terrorists" as we have young Army,, Marine, and NG'men?
Today, America is the terrorist and Bush runs free in the street. Ass backwards--he needs to go to trial and hang--along with his entire cabal.
And not for a blow job. For international terrorism and, what the Nuremburg Tribunal called "Crimes against the Peace."
I live for the day they haul the bastard out of his heavily fortified compound and lock his ass up. On the prisoner dock right next to other killers such as Slobodan Milosevic. I worked for CNN during the 90's. I saw nearly every article on these issues.
I never saw anyone as flagrant and grisly as George W. Bush & Co. He is truly out of his mind--what there is left of it. And dangerous. The fact that there are so many people on the right--certainly not everyone--who fail to take note of it remains very troubling to me.
Thanks to both of you for your comments. Dialogue is important. We are all Americans, after all.
At 7:45 PM, Anonymous said…
To suggest that the burden of proof rests on the plaintiff’s willingness to keep up her charges at all costs is not only ajudicial, but considering the mysoginistic smear campaigns of Bill Clinton, ahistorical. That you demand a self-respecting woman to put herself through the Clinton/Blumenthal locker room in order to make good on her charges stands in direct opposition to the NOW viewpoint.
And I promise you that using real figures from respectable sources is not one of your rules, but the agreed upon rules of responsible analysis. That said, let’s take the briefest look at those figures. It was estimated that Saddam killed—pornagraphically, and without discrimination--20,000 Iraqis a year. The coalition has been in Iraq for two-and-a-half years. In that time less than 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. In the same time Saddam would have killed 50,000. This means that by going to war in Iraq we have saved 20,000 civilian lives right off the bat. If you figure in the tens of thousands of infant vaccinations and food supllies, the gain in life is considerbly larger. This is to say nothing of years to come. One must always look to the facts.
Now, as to the charge of lies. What evidence do you have? The international intelligence community—those opposed and in favor of regime change in Iraq—all believed that Saddam had WMD. I invite you, I welcome you, to demonstrate otherwise. And I’d like to direct you to several undisputable facts in addition: 1. Parts of a nuclear centrifuge were uncovered in the garden of an Iraqi nuclear scientist after having been buried there on regime orders. Needless to say, this was not reported to the UN as was required. 2. The Duelfer report states that Baghdad was virtually ringed with duel-use chemical facilities, also not reported to the UN as required. There was also an extensive concealment program for such labs. 3. Saddam was, in fact, trying to purchase yellow cake in the Sudan. 4. Sadam was trying to buy proscribed missiles from Kim Jong Il. 5. UNMOVIC still says that they cannot rule out that some weapons of mass destruction were shipped to Syria on the eve of and during the invasion. And even if none of this were true—which it is, and backed up by ectensive documentation—that you would want a President who takes Saddam at his word on such matters is masochistic.
The rest of your hysterical rant, peppered with it’s “bastards” and “son of a bitch”s requires no input from me. It speaks eloquently for itself. But I am issuing you a challenge on the tangible points above. Find evidence to the contrary.
At 11:56 AM, A. J. Franklin said…
Well, you started saying that "he can always take the Clinton approach to women: rape them."
You ended by citing nothing but your own unconfirmed blather. You start out not agreeing, and you end up quite disagreeable.
Is that the way you carry out your dialogue? Quote a sub quote from anonymous from a document issued by NOW in 2/99 which also ended up saying nothing was known about the 2-bit Brodderick charges, long since disproved and found unworthy of action? Cling to that if you will, but most people who believe that mirror those on the left who believe Bush initiated the Sept 11 attacks and used cocaine in Houston.
While it may be true, it can't yet be proven.
Unsubstantiated character assassinations don't make for good discussion. Neither does unsubstantiated posts such as the one you have offered.
I suggest you provide URLs to support your numbers of how many people Saddam killed every year before complaining that I was exaggerating (You wrote: It was estimated that Saddam killed—pornagraphically, and without discrimination--20,000 Iraqis a year.)
Oh Really? That's just silly. Right up there with Saddam's troops spearing babies when they invaded Kuwait.
Prove it.
And using the deaths created by the phony WMD hunt is not a zero-sum game, as the wingers would have us believe. Since we went there to find WMD, why haven't we left empty-handed? When will we as a nation, instead of simply a political argument, decide that the reason we went to war was phony and bring the troops home?
Finally, when will Bush institute a draft to refill the ranks of the military and get off of his idiotic tax cuts that are working for the top 1 or 2% of the income categories and savaging working people?
I've enjoyed this dialogue. It is interesting to find out what a 'real lefty' thinks. More importantly, it is clear that 'real righties,' such as yourself, really let the government do most of their thinking.
(Note: This conversation has been moved to the blog page where I have done some further editing. If you have a worthy answer, post it as a "comment" to the post and I will publish it on the page. Otherwise, it will remain in the comments.)
AJ
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