The Dissing of Laura Bush

By WILLIAM MCGURN (WSJ)

By choosing Fort Bragg for her first official trip outside the capital last Thursday, Michelle Obama signaled that she will use her position as First Lady to promote one of America's most deserving causes: our military families. Plainly the families loved it. Just look at the smiles on those children as she read them "The Cat in the Hat."
So it was just a little disconcerting the next morning to hear the First Lady explain how she came to this issue during last year's campaign. "I think I was like most Americans," she told ABC News. "Pretty oblivious to the life of military families. Sort of taking it for granted."
Perhaps Mrs. Obama did take these families for granted. Surely, however, it's extraordinary to suggest that "most Americans" did the same. Certainly not the McCains, the Bidens and the Palins, each of whom had at least one son in uniform. More to the point, the presidential campaign in which she says the issue started "taking shape" for her came nearly seven years into a war that has inspired millions across America to step forward to help our troops.
The informal help includes everyday things such as providing meals or rides for a neighbor or church member whose spouse has been deployed overseas. The Web site AmericaSupportsYou.mil lists many of the more formal initiatives, which range from sending CARE packages overseas to helping homefront spouses find jobs. Under the category "military family support," the Web site provides links to more than 200 programs or organizations.
If the ABC interview was a one-off thing, it would be easy to overlook. But these days the reporting seems to reflect an assumption that if the Obamas haven't done something, nobody else has, either. Certainly the Washington Post did not challenge the First Lady's social secretary when she said, "one idea Michelle had was to have an event for military families -- here they are sacrificing so much for the country and many of them probably have never been invited to the White House."
This uncritical reportage does Laura Bush an injustice. In hundreds of ways -- picnics on the South Lawn, fund-raising for scholarships for the children of sailors on the USS Texas, unheralded visits with the wounded and families of the fallen, the work she did for military kids under her Helping America's Youth initiative -- Mrs. Bush showed our troops and their loved ones how close they were to her heart.
Possibly the difference in treatment owes something to Mrs. Bush's graciousness. Though she had many of her own initiatives -- from improving opportunities for Afghan women to giving voice to the advocates of democracy persecuted by Burma's ruling junta -- she also picked up some of the work of her predecessor, Hillary Clinton. For example, whenever Mrs. Bush spoke about her Preserve America program for national monuments, she would also give credit to Hillary Clinton's Save America's Treasures initiative.
That graciousness, alas, seems only to feed the orthodoxy that condescends to any American woman deemed insufficiently progressive on the received wisdom. This Stepford Wife treatment was on embarrassing display in a recent New York Times profile of Mrs. Obama. "[I]n a departure from her predecessor," gushed the Times, "Mrs. Obama has also begun promoting bills that support her husband's policy priorities." It repeated the point later in the piece.
Only one problem: It's not true. To mention just two, Mrs. Bush took a lead role in the reauthorization fights for No Child Left Behind and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Her advocacy included holding coffees in the residence with key legislators, working with Cabinet members, and promoting these policies in high-profile speeches in places from Africa to the National Press Club. It's just flat-out wrong to suggest otherwise, and the Times owes Mrs. Bush an apology.
Alas, as bad as the slights are, the compliments can be worse. In another recent article on Mrs. Obama, the Associated Press did include a paragraph about Mrs. Bush's work on Burma, Africa and so on. That paragraph was introduced by this sentence: "Even Laura Bush, widely viewed as a traditional first lady, broadened the role."
Even Laura Bush. In that gratuitous "even," the curtain is pulled back on the small-mindedness of an entire class.
Michelle Obama is an accomplished professional and the loving mother of two beautiful girls. In the coming years, she will make her own contributions to a more hopeful America. As she does, is it too much to ask our national press corps to find a way to give Mrs. Obama full credit for these achievements without denying Mrs. Bush the credit she deserves for hers?