Breaking (for the last 20 years): Bush women think for themselves

Laura and Barbara (the younger) Bush, public figures/private citizens, both gave interviews recently which veered from the planks in the Republican platform that partisans on both sides love to beat us over the head with.  Naturally, the left sees this as them coming out as liberals and a big deal. 

 Barbara Bush, public figure/private citizen, is the president of something called the Global Health Corps.  Mission statement:  “Global Health Corps (GHC) aims to mobilize a global community of young leaders to build a movement for health equity.”  Cue 30 year old Coke commercial.

Not surprisingly, based on that statement, Ms. Bush leans left on healthcare, and a small sound bite from her recent appearance on Fox News Sunday confirms it.

“Why do, basically, people with money have good health care and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good health care.  Health should be a right for everyone.”  That statement was regarding the issue of global healthcare.  Later on, when asked specifically about Obamacare, she said, “I guess I’m glad the bill was passed”.

She thinks healthcare is a right, which is really what many believe the healthcare debate boils down to.  (Actually, it’s about the difference between access to healthcare and who pays your bill).  It should be noted that Bushette has never publicly declared a party affiliation.

 The rest of the Yahoo article was about Laura Bush being pro Elena Kagan, pro gay marriage and pro-choice (according to the writer, Rachel Rose Hartman).

On Kagan: “I think it’s great.  I’m really glad that there will be three [women] if she’s confirmed. I like to have women on the Supreme Court.”  This isn’t a surprise, she expressed this ridiculous sentiment about having women on the Supreme Court for the sake of having women on the Supreme Court before.

Hartman then links to Richard Adams at The Guardian, who links to an appearance Laura Bush made on Larry King is still alive (h/t Laura Ingraham) where she expresses rather moderate positions on gay marriage and abortion, but Adams runs with it.

On gay marriage: “Well, I think we ought to definitely look at it and debate it. I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have I think the same sort of rights that everyone has.” I completely agree, and I’ve written about my own sensible and politically improbable solution before.

On abortion (rather vaguely):  “I think it’s important that it remain legal, because I think it’s important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons.”  If she’s saying abortion should remain legal in cases of rape, incest and the life (which is different from “the health”) of the mother then many Conservative women, myself included, agree.  Which doesn’t mean that because we’re content with it remaining legal in those cases we would counsel a friend in that situation to abort their child.  In my case, it means that after 30 years of talking in circles while millions of Americans were killed in the womb I’m willing to go hypocrite to prevent the majority of abortions which are not due to rape, incest or maternal health. 

Bush women making political waves is nothing new.  I submit, the matriarch with the mouth and one of my personal heroes, Barbara Bush the elder, aka Shecky:

In 1984, on vice-presidential candidate and future PUMA, Geraldine Ferraro, “I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.”  LOL

During the 1992 Presidential campaign she referred to abortion as a “personal thing” and said,  “The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions.”  The same kind of people that think that makes Barbara Bush pro-choice think that Abraham Lincoln was really a Democrat.

She also defended Bill Clinton’s defective pants by saying, “He never denied he had a fling, did he?”  (This was before he wound up denying, re-defining and kind of eventually admitting in his own weird way all kinds of things he did with and without his pants.)

Then there were her unfortunate, yet based in fact, remarks after her son caused Hurricane Katrina, “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality,” she said at the time. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

My point?  I don’t remember.  But the bottom line is that none of these women are relevant to national politics today, and even if they were they’re not obligated to support every plank in their party of choice’s platform.  None of us are.  Unlike women on the left, who face ostracism for veering from NOW’s talking points, Conservative women are actually empowered to form their own opinions and to share, or not share, them with the world.

Speaking of bottom lines, I vowed long ago to never let an opportunity to post this bikini pic of Barbara Bush go by again.  What a hottie!

Barbara Bush is better looking than you.

 

And speaking of what’s relevant in national politics today…

crossposted at KillTruck and POWIP