Olbermann on Bush and "strong women, never married, with no children"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

He just discussed this with Harry Shearer.

They theory holds water for Condi Rice and Harriet Miers, but not Karen Hughes (she has kids)...

...anyway, how about a little armchair psychiatry?...here's mine:

1). We already know Bush is Oedipal. If you don't know that, read Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President for starters.

2). Given that, it explains the need for him to seek a mother figure who's "a little more" than a mother figure...read Oedipus Rex if you don't know what I'm talking about here.

3). No husband: The hated father figure is automatically taken out of the picture (Oedipus Rex again).

4). No kids: That means Bush can be the woman's ONLY CHILD (Oedipus again, with shades of Norman Bates).

ANYWAY, that's my semi-educated armchair analysis. What's YOURS?

:patriot:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. If Duhbya is Norman Bates,

who's he got in his attic?

[Vickers]

2. And...any pictures of him in a dress?

:spank:

[smirkymonkey]

4. Here you go....

Jus' as purdy as kin be

[knowbody0]

3. and harry looks at him like he wishes babs would

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. I was saying much the same thing the other day.

Most men strive for their fathers' approval, but * wants only to one-up him, and does everything to get his mother's approval instead. I reckon she's a real hard person to please. So he marries a woman he can dominate, and surrounds himself with women who will praise him.

[Gyre]

6. He'd be one luck SOB if they all weren't

so GODDAMN UGLY!

Gyre

[Javaman]

7. Call me crazy, but at least Clinton had a 20 something after him...

Shrub can only attrack women in their 60's.

[spooky3]

8. I love Harry but his lame joke was offensive.

There is nothing wrong with not having a husband or children. It's better than being Marge Simpson. Further, as you implied, it wasn't even a good poke at Bush. The professional women around Bush can be criticized for a lot of things, but demographically, they are very typical rather than freaks.

If Harry would check out the stats, he'd find that while 85% of male CEOs are in traditional families (or have trophy wives plus the appearance of a traditional family), something like 45-50% of the women who are similarly accomplished are single or divorced and many of them have no children. A more logical explanation than that there is "something wrong" with them is that they have very few available peers, since so many of their peers married their secretaries, women who chose not to have careers, etc. And it is socially acceptable for men to choose such partners, but if a CEO woman married the pool boy or even a junior executive, Harry would take a shot at her too. And women in the generation now at the highest ranks had to work their asses off to get there despite discrimination. Unlikely to have househusbands or hubbies who took on equal responsibility for child-rearing, they had very little time to have kids.

Take your shots at bad behavior, Harry; don't act like a Neanderthal.

[Berry Cool]

9. I don't recall Harry saying anything was WRONG with her

because she had no husband or children. Nobody called her a freak.

He and Keith were just speculating as to why so many of the women closest to Bush appear to fit that description. When he picks them...why does he pick them?

True, it might be in part because it's easier to find women who have risen to a certain seat of power who have sacrificed a personal life to do it, because so often women do feel the pressure to do that in a way that men do not. But there have to be SOME accomplished women out there with husbands and families; indeed, there are. So why are so many of the ones closest to Bush single, no kids?

Does the theory that accomplished women have few peers/have had to sacrifice their personal lives explain it all? Or does he go to a pool of women of a certain degree of accomplishment and tend to pick the ones who have already proven they are willing to be nuns, so to speak, for him and his causes? Or at least to look that way?

It's a good question.

[spooky3]

10. Why is it relevant what their personal lives are? It wasn't necessary

for Harry to voice the words "they're freaks" in order to get his drift.

I think the numbers I pointed out in my post provide a better explanation than speculation that they arem "willing to be nuns", which you don't seem to approve of. Does Oprah need our psychoanalysis? Can't you see why assuming that such women are "willing to be nuns" is just as offensive as presuming they are gay and seeing that as a negative? Gloria Steinem had to point out to a CNN twinkie recently who asked her about presidential candidates and their spouses that there was nothing wrong with having a President who is single and that we are losing a significant part of the highly qualified pool of candidates if we insist that candidates have a certain lifestyle.

Remember also that Karen Hughes and probably many other women in the admin. have a traditional lifestyle. What evidence is there that the women Bush has appointed/nominated to high level positions are different from the population of high achieving women in society? It looks like a pretty representative sample to me.

Although this article isn't exactly on target, you may still find it interesting:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/61/female_ceo.html

I don't agree with the author on all points, but at least she is aware that not everyone has as many choices as we think, particularly not for women of middle age or older, and for those that have many choices, it's not fair to assume one size fits all.