House of Eratosthenes

I would love to see Condoleeza Rice become the next U.S. President. One of my most important reasons for wanting to see this come about, is a puerile desire to see hypocrisy exposed.

The White House Project, which outwardly seems to push for a Rice presidency as much as a Hillary Clinton presidency, seeks to increase voting and leadership among females, with an ultimate goal of putting a woman in the White House. Maybe I should start a project like this. After all, I’d love to see a software development geek with a high school education in the White House. Or, even better still, I’d like to see a raging cheapskate in the White House.

Party-neutral, the White House Project may very well be. But they had quite the liberal love-fest going on Tuesday night as they honored Geena Davis, not for being a woman President, but for playing one on TV.

To the strains of “Hail to the Chief,” actress Geena Davis accepted an award night for her television portrayal of the first woman president of the United States from an organization which is seeking to turn fiction into reality.

When the star of the ABC television show “Commander in Chief” got to the podium Tuesday, she was given a red, white and blue sash to put on over her gown, similar to one worn by Chile’s first woman president, Michelle Bachelet. “This is the coolest thing I ever got! Wow I love it!,” she said.

“So many countries have had a female head of state before us,” she told the 500 guests at a dinner in the U.N. Delegates Dining Room. “So it is certainly time.”

The award was presented by The White House Project, a non-profit organization which works to promote women’s voting, political participation and leadership, with a goal of putting a woman in the White House.

“Every interviewer eventually says, `Do you think we will see a female president in our lifetime?’, Davis said.

“I think it’s appalling that we haven’t yet. The crime is not that it’s taken so long, but why haven’t we done it yet?” she said to loud applause from the predominantly female audience that included Martha Stewart and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Davis, who plays President Mackenzie Allen, said she was thrilled and honored to receive the award because she cares so much about empowering girls and women.

“Year in and year out there are real-life gains being made by women, but there is still a huge gender disparity,” she said. “It really shows up in my industry. For every president Allen, there are a hundred never-rans. There are fewer (women) victors than victims. There are fewer (women) leaders than followers, fewer women than men, and fewer girls than boys.”

But “if elected to another season _ un term,” Davis said to more laughter, “… whatever I can do to make change happen quicker in the fake world, I promise to do.”

Filmmaker Rod Lurie, the creater of “Commander in Chief” also received an award and called the question of whether the United States is ready for a female president “insulting.”

“From now on, my answer is, `Are we ready for more of what we have got?,'” he said.

“Females represent 51 percent of the country and it’s absurd that they’re not represented in the highest level of power, and not even given that opportunity,” Lurie said.

But he said things may be changing.

“There’s a lot of firepower in the world ladies and gentelmen,” Lurie said. “There’s lots of it, but there’s no weapon as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, said the EPIC Awards acknowledge the power of media and popular culture, and she thanked Davis and Lurie “for bringing the concept of a female president to life, and doing it so well.”

Anita Hill, who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during 1991 hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, presented another award to Jeff Skoll, founder of Participant Productions for making “North Country,” a movie about courageous women who led a fight against sexual harassment in Minnesota mines,

“I for one am thankful that we live in an age where we have role models like Anita Hill to show us the way forward,” Skoll said. “We’re also grateful that the White House Project” is working to see that a woman becomes president.

Ooooohhhhh…how I’d love to see all the long faces in this crowd when President Rice places her hand on the bible and takes the oath. Hey look everybody, it’s the first single black woman who is also an accomplished piano player who is our new President. We get all these “firsts” on the very same day! Cool deal, huh? Oh, yeah. Champagne and scrambled eggs for breakfast that day, to be sure.

Remember this movie? It’s the one where Demi Moore pleases Michael Douglas orally, over his objections while he begs her not to. Heh. Well, a lot of people don’t remember the very last scene…it’s much, much more realistic than the “oh please don’t give me a blow job” scene. It goes like this: Demi Moore, the viper-like villainess, has been fired. The boss goes to the floor, and announces that he hired the viper because he had a real soft spot for women. His daughter had been killed during a mountain-climbing excursion, and he had made up his mind to get a woman into this critical executive position…and so it was filled by Demi Moore, who proceeded to do all these terrible, cold-blooded awful things. So this time around, he was going to pick the best person, and hell with whether it was a woman or not.

And he did pick a good person. It was…well, that gets into the plot of the movie. But the point was, at the end of the movie the position is filled by someone who is very, very good and morally upstanding and trustworthy…and a woman. He picked a better woman, because this time around, he wasn’t trying so hard to get a woman.

There is something philosophically deep in that. You might say it was an exact repeat of Justice Samuel Alito’s nomination to fill Sandra O’Connor’s seat last year — except Harriet Meirs isn’t accused anywhere of being evil or cold-blooded, just not as good a justice as Alito. And, of course, Alito is not a woman. But the point holds. If you want to end up with someone really good, the first step is to consider everyone who is interested in filling the position, regardless of the class from which they come. It just makes sense. And ultimately, that’s the kindest thing you can do for whoever ends up getting the nod. Because otherwise, it could be said that they got the job even though they weren’t really the best candidate. Who needs that kind of grief?

Oh by the way, we don’t have anything in place keeping women from running for President. They certainly are “given that opportunity,” Mr. Lurie.

Ms. Davis’ opportunity to play pretend, on the other hand, has come to an inglorious end.

ABC TV has put an abrupt term limit on its freshman drama, “Commander in Chief.”

The network Tuesday announced it was pulling the Geena Davis series for the rest of May sweeps and running the newsmagazine “Primetime” in its 10 p.m. Thursday slot for the final three weeks of the season, Zap2it.com reported.

The series started as one of the most-watched in the fall and Davis won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the first female U.S. president.

However, two extended breaks and behind-the-scenes changes as well as a schedule move from Tuesday to Thursday all contributed to a deep slide in ratings.

“Commander’s” three Thursday night shows have averaged about 7.5 million viewers, which means half the viewers who tuned in during the fall are now focused elsewhere, Zap2it.com said.

ABC said it would probably air the final three episodes sometime during the summer.

I’ll bet there’s a hell of a lot more than 7.5 million people who agree with me about this: I don’t give a rat’s ass what the gender is of our next president. Forty-two of the occupants of that office, had the same plumbing that I have. Many of them have done things with which I disagree…and I can think of several people with different plumbing, who would be likely to promote policies more to my liking, Dr. Rice the most prominent among them.

Personally, I think female-ness hasn’t got a damn thing to do with anything. These people want a liberal woman in the White House. Some things are just obvious.

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Commander In HypocrisyFriday, May 5th, 2006

Commander In Hypocrisy
Friday, May 5th, 2006