Not Married? No Children? Have I Got A Job For You!

Truth be told, Laura Bush actively frightens me. That plasticky smiling clown mouth, the utter blankness behind her eyes, the automaton predicatability of her responses, the mannequin wig hairdo. I could go on and on. But after Dubya tapped Harriet Miers today to replace Sandra Day O'Connor for the Supreme Court, I think he reveals his preference for an entirely different breed of scary woman: the unmarried, unMommy-ed career gal.

Now as an unmarried, childless career gal myself, one would think that I should cheer this nomination of one of my own. And yet.

And yet the idea of Harriet Miers scares the shit out of me. Because though I'd love to believe Harri is just like me and Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards (or better yet, a Dame Edna type), my thought is that she's probably much more cut from the Condi cloth. And whenever I see that woman, I feel my breast milk curdling.

But here's my take on Miers: She's been Bush's friend and personal lawyer for years, and for some reason I don't get the feeling that he'd keep a liberal, progessive lady esquire in his employ if she were truly known as a genuinely compassionate gal (and yes, I do believe the term "compassionate conservative" is an oxymoron.) Also, the fact that Bush has selected both Miers and Rice, women who don't live his view on "the primacy of the family and its values" strikes me as somehow weird. What's the deal, girls? If you don't play the game, should you really be legislating the rules?

Though on the surface I'm sure my concern about Miers's ideological position seems anti-feminist and probably self-abnegating, I can assure you I'd be just as wary of a 60 year old unmarried childless male candidate. But let's get real, there's NO WAY Bush would have nominated one of those because the idea of an unmarried man is just a little too questionable to be comfortable, isn't it? Hmmm, interesting...