Just two days ago I had cause to jump all over author Joe McGinnis for writing a biography of Sarah Palin that was more worthy of a hack reporter for the National Enquirer than the critically acclaimed author he purports to be. Well today I am compelled to comment on another book.
This one is by critically acclaimed journalist Ron Suskind, whose book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President:
…paints a vicious portrait of the Obama White House economic team, alleging that rivalries, dysfunction and insubordination were all present amid the worst financial crisis of our time.
(The Washington Post, September 19, 2011)
Alas, the most interesting thing about Suskind’s book is the extent to which it mirrors books that have been written about virtually every White House in modern times.
In fact, no less a paper of record than the Post ran a story in 2007 on the Bush White House under the headline, Book Tells of Dissent in Bush’s Inner Circle. And the Post’s own Bob Woodward, the most authoritative spinner of such inside-the-Beltway yarns, chronicled the rivalries, dysfunction and insubordination that attended the early years of the Clinton White House in his book, The Agenda.
More to the point, in the great scheme of history, these books amount to little more than the gossip one finds everyday on the infamous “Page Six” of the New York Post.
That said, unlike the McGinniss book, which has absolutely no redeeming value, Suskind’s has at least one. It stems from his portrait of women in the Obama White House. Of course, given all of President Obama’s political rhetoric about gender equality and diversity, you’d think this would be a very progressive and transformative portrait. But it’s not.
Here, for example, is what Suskind quotes former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn saying:
This place would be in court for a hostile workplace. … Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.
He also quotes former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer saying that she felt “boxed out” of key meetings and that she “felt like a piece of meat.”
No doubt if Suskind had quoted women saying these things in a book on the Bush White House, most media outlets would be portraying these women as latter-day suffragettes instead of highlighting their on-second-thought attempts to discredit his reporting.
But the reason I find his regressive portrait of women in the Obama White House entirely credible is that I myself painted a similar portrait almost two years ago.
Here, in part, is the admittedly tongue-in-cheek way I presaged what Suskind has now chronicled in his book:
Who would’ve thought that President Obama, the first black president of the United States, would be liable to criticism for fostering extracurricular White House activities that exclude women? Yet, ironically, that is precisely the case.
This criticism reached a tipping point last week when he invited only male members of his Cabinet and Congress to the White House to play basketball. And when a reporter asked him during an interview on Wednesday if he thought his boys-only outings (especially to play golf) were sending the wrong message, he dismissed the criticism as ‘bunk’ insisting that:
‘I don’t think it sends any kind of message or signal whatsoever… [I have] hired women into some of the most important decision-making positions in this White House…’
Fair enough, but Obama’s defensiveness betrayed political insensitivity and tone-deafness that are truly stupefying. In fact, he seemed utterly clueless about the fact that this is precisely the kind of rationalization white men once used to defend their good ole boys network, which invariably entailed bonding and doing business on the golf course.
To his credit, though, Obama is nothing if not a quick study. Indeed, even before he completed that fateful interview, he was probably thinking of a way to redress this egregious oversight.
Therefore, it was hardly surprising that cameras caught Melody Barnes, the Domestic Policy Council Director, lumbering with clubs in tow across the front lawn of the White House over the weekend heading out for a PR round of golf with Obama.
And thus was another gender barrier broken. It’s just too bad that cameras did not confirm whether Barnes was actually invited to play or merely to serve as the president’s caddy….
(Obama finally admits women to his all-boys club, The iPINIONS Journal, October 27, 2009)
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I hope it is clear from this excerpt that I had no clue how truly hostile a workplace it was for women back then. And I’m familiar enough with the organizational chart of the White House to reasonably suspect that Obama was just as clueless.
For the record, the women quoted in Suskind’s book all deny every word. Unfortunately, their denials smack of those of battered women who insist that their husbands never laid a hand on them. Here, these women are clearly loathed to give the impression that Obama is just as chauvinistic as all of his predecessors or, worse, that they would rather see a Republican in the White House next year.
To be fair, though, Suskind actually notes in his book that Obama was already taking steps to make the White House a less hostile workplace for women – a point I duly noted in my 2009 commentary. In fact, he can justly take pride in claiming that he has appointed more women to top positions than any other president in U.S. history.
All the same, it behooves his PR team to launch a major counteroffensive to assure the American people that there is absolutely no disconnect between Obama’s rhetoric on gender equality and the treatment of women in his White House.
Related commentaries:
Obama finally admits women…