[Mb-civic] Maureen Dowd

[Mike Blaxill]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100505O.shtml  
 

All the President's Women
    By Maureen Dowd
    The New York Times

    Wednesday 05 October 2005

    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?