This has been the president’s consistent message since September 11 at appearances before military families all over the United States. There’s a war on. A long war that will require some sacrifices from those who have chosen to serve. You must say goodbye to your loved ones, often for months at a time, in the name of patriotism and service. Your country first.
Except in Washington, where it’s apparently your country second. There, the piety of the moment is “family” first. Karen Hughes is not a cargo specialist, only the most influential woman presidential adviser in American history. One might imagine that she qualifies as among those “fight[ing] at home.” After all, she was extraordinarily important during the greatest crisis since World War II in helping the president strike an almost pitch-perfect tone of strength and reassurance. And she’d only just begun the critical job of shaping the American message abroad. With more terrorist attacks and a war in Iraq likely, Hughes’s service will be missed. That makes the president’s comments upon her departure particularly striking: “She has put her family ahead of her service to my government, and I am extremely grateful for that approach and that priority.”
There you have it: in speeches at Eglin Air Force Base and Fort Campbell, Ky., and elsewhere, Bush said he was “grateful” for “the families’ sacrifice,” but in Washington, he’s “grateful” for the opposite priorities. This is supposed to be a multifront war against terrorism, with diplomatic, political and communications efforts counting as much as military ones. But the requirements of unstinting service and sacrifice apparently apply more to the military than to other public servants.
I’m not trying to trip Bush up rhetorically (well, maybe a little); the president is just being gracious toward an aide who can channel his thoughts better than anyone, to whom he said in 1999 when thinking of entering the presidential race, “If you’re not going, I’m not going.” Even so, his response–and the country’s–to the Hughes resignation may tell us something about where our heads are right now.
The first reaction to the news was skepticism that Hughes would really give up all that power willingly. She says that she and her husband, Jerry (a lawyer), and son, Robert, 15, are “homesick” and want Robert (whom Hughes home-schooled on the campaign trail in 2000) to put down some roots back in Texas. When a man says he’s resigning to spend time with his family, it’s almost always a half-truth, at best. Women are also increasingly employing it as a handy excuse. Does anyone believe that Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift would be declining to seek election to a full term for “family reasons” if she were far ahead instead of far behind in the polls?
But in Hughes’s case, her explanation not only sounded au courant; it had the added benefit of being true. (Or as true as reporters covering a nearly leakproof White House–thanks in part to Hughes herself–could ascertain.) Because she wasn’t pushed out, she didn’t have to spin her departure, but she did so anyway–brilliantly. “Women can make choices that are good for their family and pursue their careers,” Hughes said. “I hope this says that women have more options than they ever had.”
It does, and it was reason for cheering in my own household. My wife declared Hughes a new personal heroine for reinforcing the point that women can zigzag from work to family and back, and that a well-raised, happy child is more important than a fancy job in the West Wing. If nothing else, Hughes deserves points for making family and work issues a bigger part of the national conversation. Even when she had to work late, her goal of leaving the White House every Wednesday night at 5:30 for a family dinner is a great model for overworked moms and dads who shortchange their families in the name of jobs a lot less important than hers.
Whether or not she takes a fat consulting fee from the Republican National Committee, Hughes will now rake it in on the lecture circuit. The aide sometimes called “Nurse Ratchet” by the press corps (she even controls which cabinet secretaries can go to a banquet this weekend with which reporters) may even become a kind of postfeminist pinup. Cincinnatus in a skirt. There’s nothing more attractive than someone–man or woman–voluntarily giving up real clout. And Hughes gets to have it both ways–the status of turning down power without losing much influence. Bush has said that she will continue to be an important adviser from afar.
Even so, it was strange last week that neither Hughes nor anyone else in the White House remembered that, by their own definition, we are a nation at war. That is supposed to mean all hands on deck, at least until the danger has truly passed. Hughes is not indispensable; no one is. And after eight years by Bush’s side, she may be entitled to a rest. But the fact remains that loyal aides do not generally depart during wartime. When one of them does (and I’d make the same point if she were a man), it looks like the urgency of the war on terrorism is giving way to some of the old complacency and hypocrisy. Living in Washington and sending your son to St. Albans is not exactly a huge sacrifice. When private life trumps public service, it’s a sure sign that the post-September 11 call to “duty” is over. Too bad someone forgot to tell the soldiers and their families.
