She lives with a broken man

Most of us have aspirations to be our own person, to create our own life, our own success, and to have the very American ideals of independence and freedom. For too long, society did not allow women to share in these ventures and pursuits, and relegated them ostensibly to support roles, both professionally and personally. And over the past 150 years, America's most famous women and heroic women were the ones who broke through those barriers and created lives, careers, and futures for themselves.

But, not Laura Bush. As First Lady, she has been the antithesis of Hillary Clinton, and for that matter Barbara Bush. She was never an ambitious political leader, never outspoken, and never brazen like her predecessors. Hillary Clinton targeted a grandiose issue like health care, Laura Bush took aim at relatively unsexy illiteracy.

The result? Laura's approval rating has always been through the roof, judged by most to be at least in the 80's. Reading into that is disappointing; is it because she's disarming and charming? Partially, but morever her popularity is so high because she is what Americans want in a First Lady, and sadly, what a lot of Americans want in a woman leader. In a way, President Bush is the perfect President for the United States -- uneducated, affable, incurious, and macho, and Laura plays the role of the perfect First Lady -- smiling, demure, and reserved.

But watching the administration and the President struggle over the past year and a half or so and reading the accompanying ridiculous rumors of a Laura/George split and a George/Condi affair has got to get you thinking; as a woman who is solely defined by her relationship to her husband, how does she deal with his ultimate failure? Does she have the same kind of blinders on that he does, or is she aware not only that the supermajority of Americans do not trust or approve of her husband, but that a large minority absolutely detests him like no President before?

Beyond the psychological rat's nest that all must cause, then there's the other rumors -- among others that the President has fallen off the wagon and that he's mentally ill. How does someone like Laura Bush who never wanted this kind of life deal with all of this? How does she get past all the vicious criticism of the man she clearly adores? Not that I'm particularly sympathetic, but reading the front pages of the tabloids gets you thinking: what if it was you?

All in all, I get very depressed when I think about Laura Bush. She is married to a man who is absolutely hated by tens of millions of Americans and will most likely leave office as a complete failure. But moreover, her personality and related popularity is so disappointing; America still wants women who are quiet and unopinionated. Unbelievable.