Rosalynn’s Turn
Hello, mes chers.
I’m browned off! As you may have seen, there were riots in Dublin this week. Ennobled by a senseless stabbing outside an inner-city school, a violent mob took to the streets wreaking havoc in their wake. And now this terrible business with the Dutch election. As a pal of mine postulated: we all knew the Hollanders aren’t quite as liberal as they let on – but you would hope they were practical. It’s too awful.
Oh, let’s talk of nice things! Did you read Barbra Streisand’s memoir? So bone-dry I had to stop myself from calling it Second Hand Prose. And we would be remiss not to begin today’s newsletter without paying tribute to the late Rosalynn Carter. On behalf of myself and all my colleagues at the Laura Bush School of Motoring, may I offer sincere condolences on her passing.
Everyone has their First Lady and Mrs. Carter was mine. Like Glenn, her area of expertise was Yentl health. She addressed Congress on that issue, the second presidential spouse to do so; in addition to serving as her husband’s emissary in Latin America; and establishing a dedicated Office of the First Lady. Alongside Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, she lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment; wielding more power than either – more, in fact, than any of her predecessors since Mrs. Roosevelt. Indeed, I was going to title this panegyric “Eleanor Rosalynn” – forgetting that Mrs. Carter had actually been christened thus in Plains, Georgia, in 1927.
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith wed James Earl Carter Jr. as a teenage bride and entered the White House as a grandmother of fifty. Unlike Mrs. Reagan, notorious for “borrowing” ridiculously expensive designer frocks, Mrs. Carter showed little interest in being a clothes horse. Sporting a cloth coat, not a mink, she recycled a six-year-old ball gown for her husband’s inauguration; adding to their ‘Just Folks’ bonhomie. Margaret Mead said that “Kings and queens have always focused people’s feelings and since we are not very far from a monarchy, the President’s wife, whoever she is, has little choice but to serve as our queen”. This queen thinks there are few grander inspirations than the 39th President of the United States and his consort.
It’s a malleable position, FLOTUS. Reinvented every four-to-eight years according to circumstances and political culture. Growing up, I would’ve been far more aware of Hillary, Laura and Michelle than their respective husbands. As with elderly actresses, I projected onto them my need to be embraced and validated. Women who weren’t exactly beloved, but were respected and slightly feared! It’s a role that exists outside the diplomatic parapet, but is a way of feminising and softening the harsh reality of politics. Ironically, the more influence presidential wives wield, the lower their approval ratings.
Think of “Empress Eleanor”, a Stalin in petticoats, and “Fancy Nancy” manipulating policy decisions on what her astrologer advised. Or Lady Bird Johnson, sixty years before her time as a conservationist, but known for “beautification”. (Let’s face it, “the First Lady likes flowers” is more digestible.) It relies on an outdated view of women, but those who are effective but not overreaching succeed – Betty Ford and Michelle Obama. Rosalynn Carter is on that list, too. In Barbara Bush: A Memoir, Mrs. Carter’s successor but one says: “I sometimes find Rosalynn to be a complicated person. She is very partisan and not comfortable with me. I get the feeling that she is a nice lady who loves her husband very much and is not as happy and content as she should be. I could well be wrong and certainly hope I am”.
To me, Mrs. Carter embodied the best attributes of two of her fellow Georgians: Scarlett and Melanie from Gone With the Wind. Full o’ gumption, but with a sweet integrity and indomitable spirit. No steel magnolia, she was outspoken and keenly intelligent despite (or, perhaps, because of) a modest education and a conservative, rural background. When her father-in-law died, ending Jimmy’s naval career, Rosalynn made the most of the hand she was dealt. What Scarlett O’Hara was to lumber, Mrs. Carter was to peanuts; turning the family farm into a thriving business. Married to President Carter for seventy-seven years, she was his equal to the last. Her commonsense acumen helped launch him from the State Senate to the Governor’s Mansion and, finally, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Driven by faith and a sense of mission, they taught Sunday school and built Habitat for Humanity housing together until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. One of her last crusades was saving the butterflies.
What’s impressive to some is inappropriate to others. Of her oft-blasted decision to attend cabinet meetings, she quipped: “I learned that I would be criticized no matter what I did, so I might as well be criticized for something I wanted to do”. Like Hillary (with whom the Carters had a fraught relationship; after all, the Clinton administration wished to distance itself from the failings of another Democrat southern governor’s), many accused Rosalynn of being Madam President. Codswallop! At a time when vast scores of women were entering the workforce, Mrs. Carter treated her post as a serious job. Nobody ever accused Dennis Thatcher of conspiring to be co-Prime Minister.
For all the sexism she faced, she had her vices. She could be stubborn – taking her husband’s loss far more bitterly than he did. She was also innocently photographed with both Jim Jones and John Wayne Gacy. But her goodwill crossed party lines: she was never personal in her enmity toward the Reagans and even gave a eulogy at Betty Ford’s funeral. She was fiercely pragmatic. During the promotion of her memoir, First Lady from Plains, in 1984, she stressed that a female running mate would not give the Democrats the most winnable ticket. “I would be out there campaigning right now if Jimmy would run again,” Rosalynn mourned “I miss the world of politics. Nothing is more thrilling than the urgency of a campaign – the planning, the strategy sessions, getting out among people you’d never otherwise meet – and the tremendous energy it takes that makes a victory ever so sweet and a loss so devastating.” Never quite letting go of the idea of a non-consecutive second Carter term, she rejected many calls to seek elected office herself.
Recent events in my city have left me thinking about the “have your cake and eat it” mentality that ousted them from the White House in 1980. Forty years of unfettered neoliberalism! Is it awful that my heart goes out to many of the Dublin “protesters”? Like anyone the state has left behind, it’s easier to kick down than punch up. The lower one is in the social order, the more society’s ills are placed on the individual. Oh, how we mocked you Americans in 2016; ignoring the tinderbox of hatred on our own doorstep. Nobody cares about your junkie parents. Nobody cares that you have no safe place to do your schoolwork. Nobody cares that you have no access to the arts or anything enriching. “You just have to want it Bad Enough!”
As we begin another week in this dystopian hellscape, I’m looking to Rosalynn Carter. For decency and character. And a remarkable life well lived.
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I had to upvote you just for “Secondhand Prose.” 😽