Barbara Bush, Iron Butterfly

by Joyce Marcel

Former President George Bush is a privileged yet wishy-washy and characterless man who became president out of an establishment's misguided sense of its own entitlement: he'd had every other big job in government, and while he failed at all of them, he'd been promised the presidency next. The establishment kept its promise.

But the American people spotted him for the fool he was and quickly voted him out of office. Then came Neil Bush, the first son to achieve a name of his own. He was at the center of the Silverado savings and loan scandal. How many millions of dollars did that cost the American people? An estimated $1 billion. Then there's Jeb. (You can read about all the Bush family, in fascinating detail, in a Mother Jones article.

The one we're dealing with now, George W., seems to be universally scorned for his mental weakness, even though the same men who put his father in power, still guided by the same sense of entitlement, have sworn to make him a president, too.

So, it seems fair to ask, what is driving these weak Bush men to the very top of the ladder?

Anyone who has even cursorily studied a photograph of Barbara Bush knows where the character, strength, drive, power and backbone is in that family. Forget the nonsense about her being "grandmotherly." I look into that face and see a dangerous combination of anger and sheer determination.

If she had as much common sense as she seems to have ego, she would be dreading what will happen to her son once he ascends to a presidency for which he is remarkably ill-suited. Deja vu all over again, eh, Barbara?

But she probably doesn't feel dread. She must be preening, imagining herself being described down through history as the "wife and mother of presidents."

She clearly falls into a category of women that I call Iron Butterflies.

But trivialization cannot hide the damage some of these women have managed to do. Think about the ones who actually governed, women like Imelda Marcos, Jiang Qing, and Eva Peron.

While their husbands were in power, they were called national treasures and were revered. When the fall came, they were called whores, or worse. The title of one biography about Jiang Qing, who was Madame Mao Zedong, was "White-Boned Demon." A Peron biography was titled "Woman with a Whip."

These women were all born with intelligence, drive, confidence and will. Yet the male-dominated societies in which they lived offered them only the most restricted kinds of roles. So they took another characteristic -- the female one of attractiveness-- and maneuvered themselves into power through their men.

"Sex is engaging in the first rounds, but what sustains interest in the long run is power," Jiang Qing once said.

Does a concentration on the many fascinating aspects of beauty -- style, hair, makeup, figure-manipulation, seduction -- leave any time for rigorous intellectual training in history, social science, economics and policy development that are needed to use power wisely?

No. Therefore, once these women achieved power, they were ill-equipped to use it well.

Let us compare these women with another group -- call them the Iron Ladies, although I dislike the derogatory use of the word "iron" to describe a character trait which, when it appears in a man, is admiringly called "leadership." But even though you may not like their policies, women like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir and even that polished Republican Floridian Katherine Harris, took political power into their own hands, away from the shadows of men.

This is not to say that she will flourish and do good work there; only that she will do her own work there. She will not spend her energy, as Barbara Bush does, supporting one undeserving male after another.

I am not claiming that Barbara Bush wants political power for herself. She seems to be the kind of Iron Butterfly -- and there have been thousands of them -- who is in it for the status. But her drive for dominance may punish us all.

After all, if there's one thing we have learned from the presidential elections in the past few decades, there is no guarantee that needing power, seeking power and achieving power is any indication of deserving power.