With Mothers in Charge, There Could Be Much Less to Write About
by Leigh Pomeroy
The Frank Rich op/ed in the New York Times today is very appropriate for Mother's Day.
"Oh, so Frank Rich is writing about Mother's Day," you say.
Not at all. As a matter of fact, he doesn't list the name of one mother in his article.
What Rich does detail, however, is a rundown of all the "corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals" that have occurred in the brief six years of the George W. Bush administration. He mentions a number of names — Bush (of course), Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Joe Allbaugh, Michael "Brownie" Brown, Alberto Gonzales — and numerous federal agencies.
None of these are mothers or are run by mothers, with the only possible exception being the Education Department with its Reading First contracting conflicts of interest and heavy GOP contributor Nelnet's links to the student loan controversy. The Education Department is headed by a mother, Margaret Spellings, at least in title.
In other words, mothers have had virtually nothing to do with the disasters that have befallen this country and the Republican Party since Bush took the helm.
Is this telling us something? Would we be better off if mothers were running the show? I suppose the first folks to ask would be the voters in Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Washington, all of whom have women governors.
Mothers have come a long way since gaining the right to vote throughout this country just 87 years ago. Perhaps on Mother's Day two years from now we will be celebrating our first mother as president of the United States. And many more mothers will be heading our governmental agencies.
Should that happen, it could be tough for Frank Rich, who may find himself with much less to write about.
The Frank Rich op/ed in the New York Times today is very appropriate for Mother's Day.
"Oh, so Frank Rich is writing about Mother's Day," you say.
Not at all. As a matter of fact, he doesn't list the name of one mother in his article.
What Rich does detail, however, is a rundown of all the "corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals" that have occurred in the brief six years of the George W. Bush administration. He mentions a number of names — Bush (of course), Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Joe Allbaugh, Michael "Brownie" Brown, Alberto Gonzales — and numerous federal agencies.
None of these are mothers or are run by mothers, with the only possible exception being the Education Department with its Reading First contracting conflicts of interest and heavy GOP contributor Nelnet's links to the student loan controversy. The Education Department is headed by a mother, Margaret Spellings, at least in title.
In other words, mothers have had virtually nothing to do with the disasters that have befallen this country and the Republican Party since Bush took the helm.
Is this telling us something? Would we be better off if mothers were running the show? I suppose the first folks to ask would be the voters in Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Washington, all of whom have women governors.
Mothers have come a long way since gaining the right to vote throughout this country just 87 years ago. Perhaps on Mother's Day two years from now we will be celebrating our first mother as president of the United States. And many more mothers will be heading our governmental agencies.
Should that happen, it could be tough for Frank Rich, who may find himself with much less to write about.
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