== Laura Bush, docile doormat = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Behold, the ideal Republican wife: Prim, sexless, nearly useless, lets the men do the real thinkin'. Hot!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/04/30/notes043008.DTL&nl=fix

I fondly recall, just before the tragic Bush/Kerry presidential election, an impassioned discussion I had with a family friend, a conservative Catholic mother of four and grandmother of six, headstrong, outspoken, hilarious, a real no-BS matriarch of her big crazy messy family and clearly the wearer of the pants in her marriage and a woman whom I always liked for her wit and her outsized personality, despite her unfortunate choice of religious and political affiliation, a woman who, it turned out in our discussion, absolutely hated — hated — John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Remember her? Controversial. Fiery. A little weird, prickly, unpredictable. Also: headstrong and outspoken and didn't take any crap from any men, no matter how powerful.

Heinz is also rather amazing, in terms of sheer accomplishment and self-made acumen: world traveled, highly educated, spoke multiple languages (she was an interpreter for the United Nations, early on), took over the philanthropic arm of the Heinz empire when her husband died unexpectedly, almost ran for senate, raised her enormously accomplished, well-adjusted sons to adulthood by herself, and so on. I thought she was great.

And my friend hated her. And why? Well, ironically enough, for most of the reasons I list above. Apparently, Heinz had too much personality. She was too strong, too in your face, too fearless and outspoken, something was "just not right about that woman." All this, of course, made Heinz into "a total bitch." ...

[benddem]

1. That is so true

especially Republican women want women to be door mats. Lots of men too.

[Captain Hilts]

2. No doormat here...

[Aristus]

4. The nation had Eleanor Roosevelt back before we knew what to do with her.

Nowadays, of course, we don't deserve her.

[niyad]

3. k & r

[riverdeep]

5. Laura Bush is the like the anti-Hillary in the minds of Pubs.

That's why they like her. She sticks to the traditional role of being seen and not heard. She reminds me of this evangelical couple that I see on TV. The guy sits there and yaks for half an hour, and she smiles or nods or shows concern- quietly. Hillary was too outspoken for them.

As an aside, something irks me about the phrase "wears the pants in the family". As if the man becomes emasculated when a woman is making decisions as well. Or even exclusively. Every relationship is different, some where both make decisions equally, some where the man does, some where the woman does. Many where they split what decisions get made by whom. As long as it works for BOTH of them, it's fine. There's no lone 'uniform' that gets swiped by the other.

[madokie]

6. You know you're right

especially about the wearing the pants. Decisions better left to my wife that is for us is made not by me, but by her. Likewise decisions best left to me are made by me but theres no decisions based on either of us alone by either of us because we are as one. Thats how I believe it should be, thankfully I have a wife who feels the same way

[sammythecat]

7. I actually liked Teresa more than John.

I would love to have had her as First Lady. President would be fine too. I really don't know enough about her to make that last statement actually, but I have no doubt at all that a President Teresa Heinz Kerry would be interesting as hell. I don't think she's a coward beholden to special interests like most of our Dem leaders seem to be. I really think she'd govern as a true liberal and she'd get things done. If you want to stand in her way, you'd better be prepared to fight. That's my impression of her.

She was strong, and a lot of people HATE that. They just can't stand a strong woman. A strong-willed man will make his share of enemies along the way, but a strong-willed woman can expect many more.

We're definitely making progress, but there's not doubt about it that we still have a long way to go. Just think of all the millions of ditto-heads. Even if they know nothing of her good and bad points, I'll bet every single one of those morons hate her simply because she's a woman with the audacity to run for president. That's really all they need to know to get their skin crawling.