HOME	Your Most Trusted Source of Foreign News and Views About the United States

By Washington Correspondent Pascal Riche

October 8, 2005

Liberation - Original Article (French)    

George Bush and Members of His 'Work Harem': Karen Hughes; Harriet Miers; and Condoleezza Rice

Anyone that works in a company or in administration is familiar with the phenomenon of "working couples." A man and a woman working in perfect harmony without any sexual tension. In the United States, sociologists speak about work husbands and work wives. George W. Bush has improved on the concept with the work harem.

Americans discovered last week the existence of Harriet Miers, a 60-year-old single woman that George W. Bush intends to name to the Supreme Court. Miers was his lawyer before following him to Washington. Her name had hardly been mentioned before sources at the White House began presenting her as a work wife. But the same label had been attached to Condoleezza Rice, another single woman, former National Security Adviser to the President and today, Secretary of State. Previously, it was press adviser and Presidential shadow, Karen Hughes, who was regarded as his work wife.

REWARDS

All these women, for which it is necessary to add his legal spouse, Laura, are known to be very direct, very honest and very hard workers. They adulate Bush and protect him. In return, he admires them and rewards them. Condoleezza Rice was appointed Secretary of State and Karen Hughes was chosen as Deputy Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. As for the nomination of Harriet Miers, she has been even more of a surprise, not having been a judge, and so having no constitutional experience. Bush, however, has no doubts about his second [Supreme Court] choice. "She is the best person that I could find," he declared Tuesday, with an air of certainty.

"W. adores being surrounded by strong women who devote their whole lives to pampering him, like vestal virgins taking care of the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation," wrote New York Times journalist Maureen Dowd, who uses Cayenne pepper in the guise of language.

'Pitbull in Size Six Shoes' Miers is Unleashed Upon the World

Barbara Bush: 'The Enforcer'

In any case, on matters of vital importance the President puts more trust in his work wives than in anyone else. He frequently invites them to Camp David, the country retreat for Presidents of the United States, or to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. For example, to make his final decision concerning the war in Iraq, Bush consulted only two people: Rice and Hughes. Both approved of the war (1).

"Bush always needs to be surrounded by women, who are, for him, more like mothers than wives, who are unambiguous, who give him unconditional love, and who can rescue him," reckons Justin A. Frank, a Washington psychiatrist who ventured, in a book, a savage analysis of the President (2). According to him, this need is the consequence of an emotional deficiency related to the cold, authoritative personality of his mother Barbara, who "never mothered him." Her children called her "The Enforcer," and "The Heavy."

"Bush was always a frightened little boy, tormented by fear," continues Frank. "The majority of people don't see this element of Bush's character, because he manages to give this impression of machismo. But it is obvious. These women who adore him help him overcome these fears so that he feels better about himself."

An Artist's Rendition of Condoleezza

Bush's wife Laura perfectly embodies the character of motherhood. She is the one that saved him from alcoholism and professional failure. But Karen Hughes, Condoleezza Rice and Harriet Miers are essentially there to shield him. Hughes wrote his speeches, his book, A Charge to Keep, and left her family to follow Bush to Washington. Rice guided him on the international stage step-by-step during the first months of 2001. Last April, she let escape an extraordinary lapse: "as I said to my hus ... to President Bush ..."

Laura Bush: 'A Natural Woman'

Harriet Miers, who was Bush's personal lawyer in Texas, is referred to by the President affectionately as "the pitbull in size 6 shoes." When he was governor of Texas, it was Meirs that persuaded a local judge to excuse Bush from performing jury duty, which enabled him to avoid publicly admitting that he had been arrested for drunk driving in the State of Maine ...

But Justin Frank is not the only one to have reflected on Bush's relation to women. In an interview three years ago [Read Below] (3), Laura Bush analyzed the Bush-Hughes symbiosis as a matter of "the same great instinct," and his close connection "with his mother." According to her, the tight bond that W. has with Barbara Bush was woven right after the death of his sister Robin (she was 7 years old), which pushed him "to want to replace her, to be his mother's best friend, to ease her pain," and to seek relationships with strong, frank, "very natural women." Laura obviously pushed Bush to name Miers to the Supreme Court. If she is confirmed by the Senate, that will mark the end of Bush's work harem. No "very natural women "will remain at the White House but the First Lady.

(1) Plan of Attack, Simon & Schuster, 2004.

(2) Bush on the Couch, ed. ReaganBooks, 2004.

(3) Ron Suskind, Mrs. Hughes Takes her Leave, Esquire Magazine, July, 2002.