Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species

From the workplace to the war zone, the Bush administration has wrapped female-friendly rhetoric around some of the most hard-core policy since Ronald Reagan. Some well-placed women have helped to pull off that con job. Invaluable to the president, underscrutinized in the press, the Bushwomen—the women appointed to the inner circle of the president's cabinet and sub-cabinet—are cast in the public mind as moderate, malleable, maverick, irrelevant or benign. Their carefully crafted images tap into stereotypes, while the reality of their records has remained out of sight...until now.

This is the first book to investigate Bush's women, and to report on how they rose to power and what they've done. Find out about why Chevron named a tanker after National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice; how financial ties to big tobacco corporations got Secretary of the Interior Gale Ann Norton dubbed 'The Woman from Marlboro Country'; how Labor Secretary Elaine Chao bullied union longshoreworkers to benefit her trading-with-China family and friends; read excerpts of Lynne Cheney's lesbian novel; and discover how Karen Hughes got her first job thanks to the National Organization for Women.

Women swing voters can decide elections now, and the Bush team will do whatever it takes to win their support. The cynical crusade to put a female face on anti-feminist policy is revealed in this scathing and entertaining investigation of the sinister politicians we call the Bushwomen.

The Bush team used highly placed female appointees to run cover for the most reactionary administration of our time.

From the US workplace to the international arena, the Bush administration has wrapped female-friendly rhetoric around some of the most hard-core policy since Ronald Reagan. A bombing campaign abroad was cast as a crusade to liberate Afghan women; a push to roll back reproductive rights was characterized as "protection" for women and fetuses at home. The BUSHWOMEN--women appointed to the inner circle of the president's cabinet and sub-cabinet--are a strange breed. Highly-placed yet under-covered, they are fronts for an extremist administration, one that's lawyered by anti-civil rights, anti-government radicals, and fuelled by the theocratic Right. Who are the BUSHWOMEN? Laura Flanders investigates how they rose to high office, where they might be headed, and whether their power is a victory for women's equality. Find out about Secretary of the Interior Gale Ann Norton, dubbed "The Woman from Marlboro Country" by her environmentalist foes; Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who bullied union longshoreworkers to the benefit of her trading-with-China family and friends; Condoleezza Rice and her passion for oil (Chevron named a tanker after her, ) and football (she says it's just like war); Lynne Cheney's lesbian novel; and how Karen Hughes got her first job thanks to NOW--all revealing the cynicism of the Right's crusade to win moderate women voters and put a female face on anti-feminist policy.

Laura Flanders is the host of "The Laura Flanders Show" on Air America Radio. She is the editor of The W Effect: Bush's War on Women and the author of Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting.