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Don't bet against a woman president

By PHILIP GAILEY
Published January 22, 2006

If you've been following the news lately you may have noticed that women have been crashing through the political glass ceiling in democratic elections on three continents. The new chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel, who recently called on President Bush in the White House on her first official visit to Washington. Voters in Chile recently elected Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist Party leader and pediatrician, as their country's new president. And Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated banker, was sworn in last week as president of Liberia.

Maybe it's time for a little gender change at the highest level of American government. We have women in the House and the Senate, on the Supreme Court and in the secretary of state's office. We also have women governors. But we've never had a female president or vice president - except on TV. Some will say, the United States is not just another country. It's the world's only military and economic superpower, and we need tough, experienced leadership at the helm, especially in the post-9/11 period when we live under the threat of terrorism.

Any suggestion that women lack a toughness gene is baloney. Let's not confuse arrogance, swagger and incompetence with toughness. Remember Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister known for good reason as the "Iron Lady"? "Now don't go wobbly on me, George" she told the first President Bush as he prepared to launch Operation Desert Storm to turn back the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Thatcher was tough as nails. So was Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who defended her nation against hostile Arab neighbors bent on the elimination of the Jewish state. And India's Indira Gandhi. These women led major democracies with a firm hand that commanded international respect.

Which brings us to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady and now the junior U.S. senator from New York. As everyone knows, she is planning to run for president of the United States in 2008, a job her husband held for eight years. At the very least, if the early polls are right, Hillary Clinton could become the first woman nominated for president by a major American political party. But whether she could win the presidency is another question.

Despite her efforts to repackage herself as a centrist Democrat - she's a war hawk who supports legislation to ban flag-burning - she remains one of the most polarizing figures in American politics. Her political makeover already has liberal activists crying betrayal and organizing a campaign to deny her the nomination. Many of them would prefer John McCain, an independent Republican who makes life miserable for Bush and Cheney, in the White House over the pandering, triangulating New York senator.

I may be wrong, but I think many Americans are ready to see a woman in the Oval Office, even if they are not wild about the idea of a Clinton restoration. The nation hasn't fully recovered from eight years of Clinton fatigue in the '90s. We were dragged through Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, presidential perjury, impeachment and sleazy pardons. Hillary stood by her man through it all, and it's becoming obvious that she did so for reasons that had nothing to do with the Tammy Wynette song. She hung in there because she wants to be president and she needs her man, the best politician around, standing by her.

It's not just the prospect of having Hillary in the Oval Office that some people find unsettling. They're also a little anxious about having her spouse back in the White House off the presidential leash. After his indiscretions as president, can you imagine the possibilities for mischief in his role as first gentleman? The Economist magazine wrote last week: "You don't have to be a wild-eyed Clinton-hater to worry about what he will get up to. Will he try to run bits of the government, thereby creating bizarre constitutional issues? Or will the big dog simply pad around the White House wagging his tail with nothing but time on his hands?"

For all the Clintons put us through, they didn't come close to doing the damage to our country and its standing in the world that Bush and Cheney have done. I would never cast my vote for or against a candidate solely on the basis of gender. If the Democrats put up the right candidate in 2008 - and it remains to be seen if Hillary fits the bill - I don't think gender would matter to voters who've had a bellyful of Bush-Cheney macho rule.

I'll take a White House sex scandal any day over war.

Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 20, 2006, 20:52:02]