I was about to sit down and write about France’s first lady but
events overtook me. Women and politics are everywhere in the news.
If there’s always a woman behind the throne, there is often a woman
under it as well — sometimes the same one — preparing, or at
least prepared, to blow it up.
Carla Bruni, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife of a few
weeks, gave an interview in which she said that she was
“faithful… to myself.” Well, that’s novel. Not so much the
concept as the public acknowledgment of it. To thine own self be
true and so forth, but she was specifically referring to conjugal
fidelity, and you have to ask yourself whether she, a known
leftist, was trying to embarrass her man, who is boldly trying to
show that in France these days, serious reform comes from the
right.
Evidently not; it seems rather France’s premiere dame was trying
to express her passionate, her Italian (she made that questionable
ethnic generalization, not me) nature. Now in France, it has been a
given since the mid-19th century when Gustave Flaubert created the
character of Madame Bovary, that when a woman seeks “passion”
outside the conjugal bedchamber she usually merits more pity than
contempt, for anyone trite enough to confuse true passion with a
fling exhibits not emotional depth but frivolous shallowness, an
inability, in fact, to “authentically” feel. (And of
course the French are wrong; Emma is shallow, but her milieu is
vapid and cruel; and Flaubert says: that’s life.)
However, for the other occupant of the Elysee Palace to put a
red light on the door is not likely to help the president’s image
as a hands-on, hyper-active reformer. The French are famous for
their supposed tolerance of one another’s peccadilloes, though in
practice there is a big difference between how they would like the
world to view them and how they view the behavior in question when
it affects them. To the degree that, inevitably, people project
themselves onto the image presented by their leaders, it is not at
all clear that the French are going to enjoy seeing themselves as a
nation of cuckolds and nymphos. They may chuckle, shrug, or add
this to their list of Sarko faux-pas, but how will they answer
their souls’ questions at four in the morning?
Carla Bruni bragged of her past “conquests” and spoke of
favoring men with “nuclear power,” an apt (or alarming) metaphor
when you consider that the president of France has his finger on
what they call the “force de frappe” (an image that would please
the late, great Norman Mailer, who referred to a certain part of
the male anatomy as “the avenger”). But he and his foreign
minister, Bernard Kouchner, have referred obliquely to nuclear
warfare in relation to the Persians. Is she playing to French
pacifism with an appeal to making love not war when the man in her
life has to plan his position, I mean France’s?
Which was it? Was she trying to help or trying to hinder? On its
face, neither — she sounded rather like a spoiled and selfish
brat. One imagines that even the most uxorious husband when
confronted with such feminine cattiness secretly wishes the little
lady would just be quiet.
TAKE SENATOR OBAMA, the current front-runner for the Democratic
nomination in this year’s presidential race. By all evidence he has
a wonderful marriage, his attractive young family an asset to his
life and his ambitions. But Mrs. Obama, a highly paid corporate
lawyer, has been heard to make some awfully weird remarks about her
own country, suggesting that there is a resentment in her that is
painful to behold and that some close observers of the senator
believe represents his point of view as well.
Resentment is always painful to behold, though in the case of
Michelle Obama, it can be argued that she comes by it honestly. You
might be resentful too if you were the descendant of people
kidnapped into slavery and abused by a system of legal
discrimination. You might want to, as they say, “vent.”
As a Jew, I spend one, sometimes two evenings a year saying mean
things about mitzrahim, Egyptians of ancient times, who abused and
kidnapped and discriminated against my grandparents. Well, no, my
grandparents were persecuted by Cossacks, but my point is that the
humiliation may be very close to home or very far away, but such
legacies are transmitted.
And yet, civic life requires a certain reserve. What you say in
the private sanctity of your home during the Passover seder is not
what you say in the public square. Would I want my wife to say she
was proud of America only because, at last, as I run for city
council (which I am not, but you know what I mean), voices can be
heard in the neighborhood — or more accurately, to make the
comparison with Senator Obama better, voices cannot be heard in the
neighborhood — about the rightness or wrongness of letting a Hebe
represent the shvatzes.
To be honest, no, I would not. I would prefer she stay in the
kitchen. She is a terrific cook. As Dashiell Hammett once said to
Lillian Hellman, — but never mind.
On the other hand, people in thirst of “change” may develop
doubts about their herald after this. Is the candidate buying into
this sort of openly, ragefully expressed anti-American resentment?
Is that the kind of change anyone wants? This sort of thing comes
with a price in lost votes.
WHAT WE ARE WITNESSING, it seems, is an outbreak of women putting
their feet in their mouths. Not being Dick Morris (a Democrat), I
cannot find this attractive. Geraldine Ferraro (a Democrat), much
maligned lately for saying something about the young senator that
on the face of it is not controversial, is being browbeaten as a
mean racist and told that she is objectively advancing the
Republican cause.
All this is not evidence for keeping women out of politics.
Neither Mrs. Margaret Chase Smith (Republican), nor Mrs Thatcher
(Tory) ever made remarks so gauche as those of Miss Bruni, Obama,
and Ferrarro. Nor did Mrs. Meir (socialist) or Mrs. Gandhi
(authoritarian). Joan of Arc was a class act and so was her
Algerian (Jewish) (yes) predecessor, Kahina, who fought the Arab
invaders. But observe that these dignified and classy ladies —
never mind if you agree or not with their politics — were in
power, not standing behind, or next to, or what, a man in power or
seeking power. Think about it.
Which reminds me, you have to be awfully careful what you do.
The governor of New York (Democrat), probably ex-governor by the
time I finish this, could be held up as an example of hubris, but
that would be easy. I think it’s his wife’s fault. She should have
scolded him for spending so much time in other towns and running up
such bills. She should have done that. In private.
