Posted on 02/02/2005 4:20:46 PM PST by naturalman1975
Laura Bush has started her second term as first lady with astonishingly high popularity ratings among both Republicans and Democrats. What does this say about the US? Sharon Krum reports.
There is a character on the television show Desperate Housewives who has become both a joke and the object of some speculation among the chattering classes. Perfectly coiffed, perpetually smiling, she is a disciple of the great American dream. Was she, as the creators suggest, inspired by those Stepford wives of suburbia, or by a certain spouse resident in the White House? They laugh and wink and feel awfully clever - but, in reality, the joke is on them.
Though they turn up their noses at the presidential wife who happily plays second fiddle and gazes adoringly at her husband, the fact is, as Laura Bush enters her second term as first lady she does so wrapped in the kind of popularity that is normally reserved for Julia Roberts or J-Lo.
Laura Bush's approval rating stands at 71 per cent - remarkably, she even has a 55 per cent approval among Democrats - making her more popular than her husband (52 per cent) and streets ahead of Hillary Clinton when she entered her second term with 47 per cent. The icing on the cake for Bush, 57, was the staggering 79 per cent who told pollsters she had "improved the image of the office of first lady".
Which is what exactly? And why are Americans so in love with a woman who rarely ventures an opinion, declares her primary role as that of a wife and bristles at the idea of exerting any influence over her husband's frankly reckless policy decisions - indeed, loyally defends them?
"Despite the progress of women on the American landscape," says Marie Wilson, president of the White House project, an advocacy group for women in politics, "we are still a very conservative country. We want our first lady to embody the ideal of wife, mother and helpmate. Laura, who quit her job as a librarian after she married, has not claimed any public authority or revealed any ambitions beyond those she harbours for her husband.
"Contrast her stance with that of Hillary Clinton, a lawyer who was vilified for having an agenda - she undertook to reform US health care - and opinions of her own."
Barbara Burrell, associate professor of political science at Northern Illinois University, says that what Americans want in a first lady is basically a beauty queen. "They want the traditional hostess to meet and greet, and, like a beauty queen, to have a platform." In Bush's case, her causes are controversy-free literacy and education.
"But God forbid they should become a policy adviser like Hillary or Rosalynn Carter," says Burrell. "We still have a huge problem in this country with women and power. Simply put, we don't like women either wielding power or being proximate to it."
A frustrated Hillary Clinton, whose husband once announced she would be his "co-president", admitted as much, remarking of her tumultuous tenure, "There is something about the position itself which raises in Americans' minds concerns about hidden power, about influence behind the scenes, about unaccountability. Yet if you try to be public about your concerns and your interests, then that is equally criticised."
Bush has no such problem. Though she married into a political family, Bush stayed on the sidelines when George campaigned, insisting she had no interest in politics. Shy by nature, she preferred to retreat into books and later enveloped herself in motherhood (the twins, Jenna and Barbara, are now 22) rather than hit the stump. It was only during the last election cycle that she began speaking publicly on a regular basis, but it was always to toe the Administration line. She rarely offers a glimpse into her world.
"One reason Laura is so popular is because she is temperamentally quiet and not interested in having any attention," says Ann Gerhart, author of The Perfect Wife, a biography of Bush. "She has causes she champions, but she does it very quietly. She also projects this steadiness and calm, and I think especially after September 11 there was a feeling that the country needed a comforter-in-chief." Indeed, with the country reeling from the attacks, Laura's fixed smile, soothing voice (advising parents to tend to their children) and calm demeanour proved exactly what the doctor ordered. The country wanted a "mommy", not some outspoken feminist sister, to soothe them.
Historically, says Burrell, Americans have always demanded that their first ladies be trapped in some kind of 1950s amber. When asked how she saw her role, Mamie Eisenhower's classic response, "Ike runs the country and I turn the chops", won deep approval. Barbara Bush, wife of George Bush snr, was similarly lauded when she took up her role as "grandmother" to the nation. Completely apolitical, her attentions were solely attuned to her husband and her dogs. By contrast, Nancy Reagan was excoriated for using astrologers to chart her husband's schedules and soliciting funds to buy new china, while Hillary Clinton was nailed to the cross for daring to work alongside her husband.
With America in the throes of a seismic political and religious shift to the right, the reasons for Laura Bush's popularity among church-going soccer moms is not neuroscience. But what is remarkable is her broad appeal among Democratic women, who only four years ago were chanting "Hillary, Hillary" at fund-raisers.
"It's actually not that hard to understand," says Gerhart. "Because she is so inscrutable, people can project on to her whatever traits they value. So if you are conservative, you see someone who gave up her career and devoted herself to the role of wife and mother. If you are a professional woman, you see someone who worked in poor schools, was a librarian, and had no interest in getting married until she was 30. Plus it has also been suggested that while she will never cross the party line publicly, in private her opinions may be more moderate than those of her husband."
In fact Democrats giddily trade stories about the other side of Laura Bush, that she once admitted to being pro-choice (asked about it since, she says her opinion shouldn't matter), how she disagrees with her born-again husband on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. They tell themselves that under that helmet head and powder-blue suit she really is a force to be reckoned with, repeating the well-known story that when George was drinking she gave him the ultimatum "Jim Beam or me" and he capitulated.
The President himself admitted last week that Laura continues to upbraid him in private when necessary. After declaring in 2001 that he wanted to catch Osama bin Laden "dead or alive", he returned to the White House to find his wife infuriated by his cowboy, gunslinger attitude. "She chewed me out right after that," he said. So they figure the former librarian who reads compulsively - unlike her husband, who admits he does not read newspapers - cannot really be a Stepford wife.
But the biggest weapon she has up her sleeve, says Marie Wilson, is the way she has (courtesy of her spin doctors in the White House) framed her husband's disastrous invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq in ways that make Americans - women in particular - feel uplifted and empowered.
"After years of being treated as virtual prisoners in their homes by the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan are now able to walk outside their houses without a male escort," she said, boasting of the success of her husband's response to 9-11. What woman wouldn't respond to that message?
In fact, one pundit suggested Laura Bush was the administration's fabric softener, and it appears she is. Recently, when Nancy Reagan criticised President Bush for limiting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Laura was deployed to put out that fire too, warning the public that no cure via stem cells was remotely imminent.
Immediately after George Bush won the election, he gloated that he had earned new political capital which he fully intended to spend. Given the disaster of Iraq and his love affair with corporate America, the idea that he would push deeper into his agenda caused shudders throughout Democratic America.
But Laura Bush, by extension, has earned capital as well, and there are some who would like to see her, as opposed to her husband, really go shopping. "Yes, education is her platform, but to what extent has that generated any kind of equality of education and improved it any large measure?" asks Burrell. "She could really push for change."
"I would hope she would recognise she has a powerful platform and four more years to stand on it, and that she would work to be as effective as she can be," adds Gerhart.
But Marie Wilson has bigger goals. "I would love her to become more activist, because every first lady, like Hillary, like Cherie [Blair], who acts outside the mould builds the possibility of more women having voices in power. When first ladies speak up, they become bridges to another kind of role for women."
You doing OK, MS B?? I miss you!!!
"But God forbid they should become a policy adviser like Hillary or Rosalynn Carter," says Burrell. "We still have a huge problem in this country with women and power. Simply put, we don't like women either wielding power or being proximate to it."
Really? I don't. I object to power-HUNGRY women who abuse their positions or use them as a bully pulpit to promote socialism.
And don't kid yourself...Laura has the President's ear. ;)
Oh pullllleeeeeeeeeeese . . . .what's Condi Rice then? Chopped Liver?
She's mad because the women SHE wants aren't in power. Get over it.
Laura knows that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
It's all about Laura's Texas accent. I love it! She "sounds" like me.
Hitlery was never 'first' lady. Last, but not first.
These people are sexist/racist lunatics.
And that's putting it nicely......
(But I like her, anyway. ;o)
"...says Burrell. "We still have a huge problem in this country with women and power. Simply put, we don't like women either wielding power or being proximate to it."
Dr. Rice...meet Ms. Burrell. There now - ya'll talk amongst yourselves.
:o)
No, we don't. We easily accept women who get power by their own efforts.
What we don't like is women (or men) who manipulate the people who have power so that what we get is not what we voted for. hillary is the most egregious example, but people disliked Nancy Reagan when they thought she was manipulating her husband. And a lot of people were upset to think that Karl Rove was the one setting WH policy for W.
The smiling adoring look President Bush gave Laura just before the speech said it all.
I thought the article was a good gauge of at one non-American's lack of understanding about Laura, and the people who love her.
It is helpful to know what folks on the other side of "right" are thinking.
Maybe, just maybe, we don't don't have "a problem with women in power". Maybe we just have a problem with the UNELECTED position of first lady when it drifts into policy making (ala hillary).
Everything they think about the President, his wife and what 'we' think of her is precisely the opposite of the truth.........and it's good to know that.
If you're for the right policies, I don't care what sex you are or what you look like.
Prof.s Barbara Burrell and Holt Parker
That last name should be spelled crumb.
Her Heinous was villified because her health care proposal stunk so bad that even the Dems wouldn't vote for it, but she paraded around acting like she was the Grand Prize winner in the sweepstakes of life. I don't admire someone just for having an opinion; it frankly depends on what it is. Conversely, I don't dislike a First Lady who keeps her opinions to herself. Laura Bush knows that we didn't elect HER, unlike her predecessor in that position who thought that we did!
She is terrific! Very intelligent, capable personality,beautiful person to know and a dedicated conservative.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.