The Women Behind Bush: They Promote and Defend, Nudge, Revere and Defer

[kskiska]

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

This will be a big week for Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, whose testimony on Thursday to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to portray her boss as incisive, tough-minded and on top of the threat from Al Qaeda.

Last week was a big one for Karen P. Hughes, one of the president's closest advisers, who began a 16-city tour promoting a book that portrays her boss as incisive, tough-minded and, on top of it all, "enormously fun."

(snip)

Mr. Bush's critics say that he is comfortable with strong-willed women as long as they do not raise uncomfortable questions about other women's lives — like why the president has appointed federal judges opposed to abortion rights and cut millions of dollars in family-planning money overseas?

"This is a White House that puts women front and center when it is politically useful, as they are now in gearing up for the 2004 campaign, when women's votes will be central," said Ann Lewis, the national chairwoman of the Women's Vote Center of the Democratic National Committee. Ms. Lewis said that Ms. Hughes and Ms. Matalin, who both left the White House to spend more time with their families and advise from afar, have been brought back to be the "face and voice" of the campaign.

(snip)

Ms. Rice, who is so devoted that she spends most weekends with the first couple at Camp David, once made the mistake of pressing the president too hard about his use of the phrase "vital role" in a speech to describe the responsibilities of the United Nations in Iraq. Ms. Rice did not agree with the phrase, but Mr. Bush abruptly cut her off. "I did it, and that's it," the president told her, said a senior administration official who watched the exchange.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05LETT.html

[ultramega]

1. Karen Hughes make me want to puke.

I bet they paid this one richly to come out of hiding. She manages to do the Stepford shuffle and still make it look natural, like she WANTED the lobotomy, really she did.

[kskiska]

8. Karen left Washington and her job to take care of her family

What no one is mentioning, but is painfully obvious, is that she's now leaving that very family to go back to her job. What's so noble about that?

[The empressof all]

12. Karen reminds me of

Mommy Barbara

[Piperay]

17. So that explains it...

I just cannot tolerate her but wasn't exactly sure why. Yup that's it, she has that Bar 'quality' about her. :puke:

[rocktivity]

2. I lost interest when I got to "By Elisabeth Bumiller"

:puffpiece:
PUFF PIECE ALERT!

:headbang:
rocknation

[baby_bear]

9. why so against bumiller?

I haven't found her to by a Bush sychophant by any means.

She and David E. Sanger are good writers.

What am I missing?

s_m

[Scairp]

16. You're missing quite a bit when it comes to Bumiller

Read these and then we'll talk.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032204.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh030204.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032504.shtml

[ugarte]

3. Condi looks like a mean drunk

Maybe she and W throw back shots while Laura reads.

[DemoTex]

4. "Valkyries, warrior women"

YES! Excellent description. Semi-man-ish Karen Hughes (who grew up in my church in Dallas - the 1st Pres.), the anything-but-sweet Condoleeza, and Mama (please throw that Bu$h mama from the train, will ya!). Mama Bu$h is Brunhilda and Lady Macbeth rolled onto one. Murderesses both, or all I should say.

[PartyPooper]

13. You nailed it, DemoTex!

:evilgrin:

[markses]

5. Translation: PLEASE vote for us, suburban soccer moms

PLEASE ignore the fact that were already working on plans to get your children killed through war and asthma! PLEASE vote for us anyway, because we have so little respect for women that we think puff pieces about the women behind Bush will increase his stature. And look, it's in the new York Times, so it's really a piece of journalism rather than a campaign commercial. (Don't worry Elizabeth: Check's still in the mail!)

[grasswire]

6. Bumiller forgot a word...

...she said promote, defend, nudge, revere and defer but forgot to say ENABLE. They ENABLE him to continue in his pathological narcissism.

[LiberalFighter]

7. How does he treat people? [Is it women?]

Ms. Hughes, who is so devoted that she said "I love you, Mr. President" when she told Mr. Bush she needed to move her family back home to Texas, once made the mistake during the 2000 presidential campaign of keeping Mr. Bush, then governor, waiting on a tarmac for 20 minutes. As she recounts in her book, "Ten Minutes From Normal," she had been meeting with the president of CBS News and her cab got stuck in traffic when the police shut down the streets for Mr. Bush's motorcade.

Mr. Bush greeted her at the airport with only five words: "Did you have fun shopping?"

/snip/

Ms. Rice, who is so devoted that she spends most weekends with the first couple at Camp David, once made the mistake of pressing the president too hard about his use of the phrase "vital role" in a speech to describe the responsibilities of the United Nations in Iraq. Ms. Rice did not agree with the phrase, but Mr. Bush abruptly cut her off. "I did it, and that's it," the president told her, said a senior administration official who watched the exchange.

/snip/

If Mr. Bush snaps a towel at his wife, he is too agile a politician to do it in public. But he did once dig himself in when he told an audience in North Carolina that his wife was at the ranch in Texas "to sweep the porch, because the president of China is coming tomorrow." The next day, when a reporter asked Mrs. Bush if she appreciated her husband's comment, the president said yes but the first lady shook her head and mouthed, "No."

/snip/

Mr. Bush responds by making fun of her culinary skills ("I did eat with my family, so long as my mother wasn't cooking," he once said in Florida)

[robbob]

10. Let's not forget Letterman

...where he cleaned his glasses using one of Dave's assistant producers shirt hem.

[LiberalFighter]

11. I remember that now...

didn't see it in this article

[progressivebydesign]

14. Karen Hughes book is a piece of election year drivel..

.. "written" merely to TRY and package Bush as a leader once again. It's a useless piece of trash.. not worthy of reading. Hearing how they described it, it is obviously full of lies. Bush doesn't know what the fuck he's doing from minute to minute. It's a snow job.

I was so angry by the time I left Borders Books last night.. everywhere I was surrounded by 'liberals are evil, bush is god' books. It was so nauseating. Any dick with a pencil can write a book (I don't mean Dick Clarke, either!), as long as it bashes the Democrats.

[Stephanie]

15. I think Elisabeth Bumiller and Karen Hughes are one and the same.

Watch Bumiller disappear now that Hughes is appearing again in public.

Who writes the headlines?

Revere???

[dbt]

18. bu$h's women will all wear the burqa sooner or later.

But, geez, girls. Think of all the money you'll save on clothes!

:evilgrin:
dbt

[DeepModem Mom]

19. Why Tucker Carlson doesn't like Karen --

This from an interview with Tucker in Salon, is from a post in GD by buycitgo:

SALON: What about your profile of George W. Bush in Talk in 1999? That had to be the most damaging profile of him yet written -- swearing like a truck driver, making fun of Karla Faye Tucker's death penalty appeals, mimicking her saying, "Don't kill me!" -- because of its high profile, and because of your access to him. Did that bring you flak from conservatives?
..........

TC: It {{response from pugs}} was very, very hostile. The reaction was: You betrayed us. Well, I was never there as a partisan to begin with.

Then I heard that Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she'd heard -- that I watched her hear -- she in fact had never heard, and she'd never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane.

I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness.

They get carried away, consultants do, in the heat of the campaign, they're really invested in this. A lot of times they really like the candidate. That's all conventional. But on some level, you think, there's a hint of recognition that there is reality -- even if they don't recognize reality exists -- there is an objective truth. With Karen you didn't get that sense at all. A lot of people like her. A lot of people I know like her. I'm not one of them.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/09/13/carlson /

[MaineDem]

20. He is just so caring!

:eyes:

In his first few months in office he proved himself to be a friend of women by:

- Resurrecting the global gag rule - eliminating US aid to international family planning programs whose services included (but did NOT use US funds for - informing women of legal abortion options, providing safe and legal abortion services, or lobbying for abortion reform with their own funds.

- Closing the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach.

- In his first budget to Congress, trying to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees.

- Proposing to cut maternal and Child Health Block Grants and to freeze money for Healthy Start programs.

And this was only January through April of 2001.

How any woman (especially mothers) can support and enable this idiot is far beyond my comprehension.

[readmylips]

21. LittleBush likes his women Vindictive and Mean....

just like his mama Baba. Read her bio and you'll see how vile and mean mama Baba is, and takes great pride in her quest to crush people she hates. George Sr was hand pecked by mama Baba, that is why littlebush does not want to identify with poopy. Mamas influence their first born the most, positive or negative.

Psychologically, he was afraid of his mama's might, and learned that to be mean, arrogant and vindictive got you power and admiration. Karen Hughes is in public what mama Baba is in private. Funny, mama Baba has been kept in the shadows and popooy came out with tears in his eyes for his criminal son.