February 2, 2001
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February 2, 2001 |
When a new President puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath of
office, his wife is usually holding it (the Bible, not the new
President), and in most cases, that is the most important picture we
will see of her for four years. Before anyone points it out to me,
Hillary and Eleanor Roosevelt were exceptions.
Most of the people marching to their assigned seats on the inaugural
podium were middle aged white males looking pompous. In spite of the
nine female Senators and 60 female members of the House, one gets the
idea that the only women around are the secretaries and the President's
wife. But if we looked carefully, the people leading the suits to their
places at the Inauguration, and taking care of all the details that
don't show, but without which there would have been be chaos, were
women.
This term there is a pair of 19 year old female twins . I do hope that
the press will give the Bush twins the circle of privacy they gave
Chelsea and Amy Carter, but with grown women - and two of them -- you
never know.
One secretary who received a lot of publicity during the Clinton years
was the President's secretary, the "keeper of the gate," Betty Currie.
She is, of course, out of the White House now, but she took with her a
living and probably howling souvenir. Bill and Hillary have
disappointed me in this. They jettisoned Socks, the presidential cat,
who has been in charge of the living quarters for eight years. But no
more. Ms. Currie agreed to adopt him and she will probably give him
lots of TLC and go home every night and discuss the day's activities
with him.
Maureen Dowd had a wonderful column recently describing in far more
detail than I can three women who will be in the White House in the new
administration. As she puts it, "The president has added some female
swagger to his staff-- the GOP's three most famous alpha females, tall,
tough, salty, relentless and fanatically loyal operatives, Mary Matalin,
Margaret Tutwiler and Karen Hughes."
This one will be great fun to watch and I am betting on Mary. She
exists in what may be the weirdest marriage in Washington. Her husband
is James Carville and the two of them are highly vocal on absolutely
opposite ends of the ideological scale. She will be Counselor to Dick
Cheney and an assistant to President Bush and her power base will be
huge. Here is one alpha female to watch, but don't forget those other
two.
Each four or eight years a presidential wife moves into a new house in
Washington and sets up the domestic arrangements pretty much as she did
when she moved into a new house in Austin or Little Rock or Plains, and
makes parts of it their own. It is fascinating to read about the way
these various women have handled it, starting with Dolly Madison who
refused to leave the burning White House until she had rescued the
portrait of George Washington.
Much as I wish she and her husband were still living in Texas, I do like
what I have seen and read of Laura Bush. Of course she is a retired
librarian, which gives her a head start. Her husband supported her
career choice and says he even read a book once. She is apparently
calm, self-possessed and as friendly as she looks. And she has a sense
of humor.
Laura Bush is apparently more honest in stating her opinions than her
husband. She said publicly that she does not believe Roe v. Wade
should be overturned. I listened to the inaugural speech and almost
believed her husband's promise to try to bring us together. But his
very first action after appointing far right-winger John Ashcroft was to
cut the funds for international health care for women and to suggest
further study of RU-486. Where there might have been a period of
trying to understand each other, he chose deliberately to tear us
apart. I hope she makes him sleep on the couch.
Regardless of how little real power most first wives have, they are
still public figures and are always criticized for something. But I
like Laura Bush and wish her well. I hope she enjoys her stay in the
White House.