It is amazing. You are alive. Years of blundering through life, from tricycle to BMW, ignorance to awareness, you made it.
Conscientious people think about these things sometimes. They take a mental roll of all the stupid things they have done in their lives and come to the realization “it is a fucking miracle that I am here right now.”
How did it happen?
Best bet? It probably has a lot to do with your mother.
Remember your mother. Remember the times you called just to chat, talk to your mother, ask her advice. What should I do about my girl friend? Am I crazy, or is she? Remember asking your mother how long you could not pay the cable bill until they shut it off. Remember asking her what course you should take and (despite being your “own person”) end up taking that course.
Now remember the Secretary of State. Remember when she advised you to bomb Iraq when the scandals were touching a little too close to home. Remember when she called you from Putin’s office in Russia and got you to take your finger off the button. Remember, just this past year, when she told every one who would listen that you were not qualified for your job.
Wait.
What is that? Remember the Secretary of State? She?
Three out of the last four Secretaries of State have been women. Strong willed, high character women. Women who must have been frightening mothers.
By definition, a Secretary of State serves the President. Just like a mother does a service to her child by raising it and teaching right from wrong.
Bill Clinton had the
first, Madeleine Albright, the tough old curmudgeon. She reminds me of a favorite aunt, the one you would not mind seeing on occasion, yet you pitied your cousins for having her as their mother. The one with the hunched back, the longer cigarette with plastic holder, the extra dirty martini and the cane to smack you when you got out of line.Yet, she was a loving mother and aunt. She was sharp as a cleaver, she kept you in line, pointed you in the right direction, chastised you when you were insolent. You thanked her for it. You respected her as much as you feared her.
Clinton made a cameo on Family Guy not long ago and revealed the wild and crazy side that can only be Bill. . . “Hey, you know where I got that nipple ring? Old straddling Madeleine Albright gave it to me.”
Oxymoron?
Or just moron?
Then came Condi. Like Albright before her, brought into office in the second term of a president, in this case George Junior.
Condoleezza Rice seemed like she could have had a kind streak. Maybe. Yet, she also seems like one of those tough-as-all-hell African-American mothers who would bludgeon you from across the house to get off your lazy ass. Stop playing with your damned Play Station and do something.
Condi was what George Junior needed. Tough minded, smart (smarter than him, at least) and willing to work. She could take you to task as if you were an idiot or insolent and bully you into cooperating when you did not agree. What a perfect weapon to unleash on the world (and long overdue); The American Angry Black Woman. Junior, if you did something right your entire presidency, this may have been it.
Now comes Hillary. Confirmed by a margin of 94-2, she is President Obama’s blood hound. Mrs. Clinton follows the “Feared and Respected Elder” and the “Angry and Astute Black Woman” with her own special blend, power suits and all. We shall call her the “Classic New American Woman Power Broker Who Will Eat Your Soul.”
Admit it. Hillary scares you a little bit, doesn’t she?
Clinton is the last lady I would I would want to see as the Secretary of State if I was a foreign leader. Maybe the last person in general, except for the return of Henry Kissinger (I still might give Clinton the edge though). Smart, tough, crafty, devious even. She would wear a diplomatic smile as she signed your death warrant and present it to you with firm handshake and pat on the back.
It makes sense that the Secretary of State position should be now and forever dominated by woman. What
better way to get world leaders to listen than to send over somebody who reminds them of their mothers, someone they cannot help but admire and respect, yet have a general, healthy fear for?Now, remember recent history. Under which Secretaries of State did the two Iraq wars start?
Hint: They were not women.
Our presidents needed these women. Each president childlike and inexperienced in their own way, these women kept them accountable. They needed these women to keep them in line, needed them to fulfill their agendas, needed them to placate the rest of the world in a way that only a woman can do. Yet, they are not so much nagging mothers and caretakers as they are daggers that the presidents can throw. Sharp tools in the Cabinet.
World leaders, I warn you now. Watch out for our newest Secretary of State. Hillary will cut you, cut you deep if you do not fall into line.
Yet do not expect her to kiss your boo-boo, cotton swab it with hydrogen peroxide and make it all better with a band-aid.
Really, she is not that kind of Mom.
