March 30, 2004 by s.z.

World O'Crap Bookclub Selection: 

Ten Minutes from Normal by Karen Hughes

Book Description

Karen Hughes has worked beside President George W. Bush since, as she says, "the motorcade was only one car and he was sometimes the one driving it." As counselor to the president, she brought the working mom’s perspective to the White House, often asking of President Bush’s policies, "What does this mean for the average person?"

And then the President would say, "Screw the average person!" and they'd laugh and laugh.

In this disarmingly down-to-earth, warm, often funny, and frank book, Hughes looks at her unique career in George W. Bush’s inner circle and the universal concerns of balancing work and family.

Well, the book is a "frank" look at George Bush the same way that Triumph of the Will is an unvarnished look at just how awesome Hitler is.

This is a book for the legions of women and men everywhere who are seeking new inspiration for how to remember their priorities and achieve balance in their lives. Most important, in a post-9/11 world, Hughes redefines the very notion of what is "normal" as something special and precious, never to be taken for granted in America again.

So, it's a book cashing in on God, motherhood, and 9/11 -- not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as you're a Republican.

Since there aren't any Amazon customer reviews out yet, let's hear what the press (Time, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and The NY Post ) had to say about Karen and her book. First, Time: 

On a recent day at the airport in Austin, Texas, a tall woman with a familiar face was standing alone, waiting to catch a plane, when a man strode purposefully across the terminal and started talking to her. She did not know the man, she says, recounting the story, but he knew her --knew, at least, what she had once been -- and he had something urgent to say. "You've spent enough time with your family now," the stranger, earnest and friendly, told Karen Hughes. "They need you back at the White House."

And in an eerie coincidence, he was the same stranger who told Jim Caviezel that he'd play Jesus in six months.  Is he a messenger from God, sent to tell people what they should do with their lives?  Or he is just some escaped mental patient who goes around giving crazy advice to strangers?  Nobody knows.

Anyway, as we all know, Karen had quit her job as the President's closest adviser in summer 2002 because her son needed her.   When her son told her that she had not just ruined his life, but also the life of their dog, it made Karen do some thinking. 

"Too tired to make brownies," she says. "What does that say about our life?" 

It said that she should take her family back to Texas, where she could teach her son to drive, serve as an elder in her church, and presumably make brownies, all while continuing to advise the President on a part-time basis, and also make speeches at $50,000 a pop, and write this book, for which she reportedly got a $1 million advance. 

And her walking away from the White House showed that she's a role model for Bush's family values, for as the NY Post said, "Her exit lived up to Bush's own credo that 'the first job anyone has is to be a good mom or dad.'"  Especially if it gets you away from that obnoxious Karl Rove.  And after seeing how well the Bush twins turned out, Karen knew that Bush's credo had merit.

Now let's go back to Time to learn what the book says about Bush:

Readers looking for West Wing intrigue will be disappointed by the Hughes book; when the subject is the President or Hughes' colleagues in the Administration, Ten Minutes from Normal is all kiss and no tell. Bush is presented as "humble," "wonderful," "tough-minded," "decent and thoughtful," with a "laserlike ability to distill an issue to its core" and "a knack for provoking discussion." Even his tendency to mangle words is a sign, to Hughes, of a "highly intelligent" mind outpacing a sluggish tongue. 

The Dewey Decimal classification for the book will place it in the 200s, along with other books about religion and myths.

But based on the above information, here's my idea of what Karen had to say about September 11th:

"It was September 11, 2001.  The highly-intelligent President was in Sarasota, FL,  reading books with the second graders.  Andrew Card waited until there was a lull, and then whispered to the President that a plane had hit the World Trade Center --and actually, this was the second time it had happened that morning. The laser-like mind of George Bush distilled the issue to it's core: that was a mighty bad pilot! 

"The decent and thoughful President didn't want the tragedy to interfere with these children's education, so he picked up The Pet Goat, and practiced phonics with them.  Using his knack for provoking discussion, he asked the children questions about the goat (it apparently "did some things that made the girl's dad mad").  The wonderful man chatted with the kids about reading, advised them to stay in school, and answered questions about his education policy.  He cordially posed for some leader-like photos.  He graciously waited until the press was gone, and then he stuck around for another twenty minutes, thoughtfully protecting the school with his divine presence from any other terrorist-controlled planes that might be around. 

"And then he humbly acceded to Dick Cheney's guidance, and spent the rest of the day flying to  Louisiana and Nebraska."

Anyway, while the book is mostly about what Karen thinks of Bush, it's also about God -- and what He thinks of Bush.  Per the Star-Telegram:

Deeply religious like her boss, Hughes similarly sees a world of black and white and good vs. evil -- and perhaps even a presidency preordained by God to fight the war on terrorism.

Drawing inspiration from the Old Testament on Sept. 11, 2001, she wonders whether Bush had won one the closest elections in American history and "come to a royal position for such a time as this."

So, God rigged the ballots in Florida so that Bush would win the election and could fight evil (by killing them all, and letting God sort them out) when the time for that came.

And, as mentioned before, the book is also about motherhood, as practiced by "real-life Soccer Mom" Karen:

And so the most powerful woman in the White House and therefore, arguably, in the world up and quit, instantly becoming a celebrated role model for mothers considering whether to ditch high-powered jobs to spend more time with their kids.

 "I have a lot of young women come up to me and ask, 'Can you have a career and a family?'" Hughes says. "My answer is yes, but you have to make choices."

To be sure, not every woman has the choice of giving up the office job only to take up a more a lucrative, self-directed one: her celebrity status made it possible for her to land a hefty book contract and lecture fees of up to $50,000 an appearance

So, it's obvious that young women should follow Karen's example and become advisors to George Bush, so they can have it all: the time with their kids, and the big, fat pay checks.  That's what it means to be truly liberated. 

And the book is also about why conservatives are better than those smug liberals who think they're so superior to everyone else: 

As far back as the 1960s, Hughes began to harbor doubts about a liberalized American culture.

She recalls that her parents, while more conservative than President Kennedy, saw his assassination as a blow to America's "formerly shared code of conduct and moral authority."

Years later, Bush would rail against a culture that promoted the idea that "if it feels good, do it."

And just as Bush, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, has expressed disdain for East Coast elitism, Hughes writes about developing a "lifelong aversion to people who think they are better than anyone else" and rails against the "smug superiority conveyed by many elites."

Yes, when the hippies killed JFK because it "felt good," they showed they didn't have the moral authority to lead this nation.  And that's why we needed George Bush to be our President when the terrorists attacked, for he is a man born and raised far from the East Coast elites who think they're so smart just because they can use words correctly.

Of course, Karen slipped once herself, doing something because it felt good.  But she's never done it again (and that's why she just has the one son).

Now that she's no longer working in the Bush White House, presidential confidante Karen Hughes can finally reveal the embarrassing truth: She voted for Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976.

And has regretted it ever since. 

That she came unhinged even once from her conservative moorings is perhaps the most surprising disclosure in Ten Minutes from Normal, Hughes' newly published memoir.

So, now that you know the big surprise in the book, I've ruined it for you, and you don't have to read it. 

6:50:16 AM