TV Eye

Harriet Miers, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton

On last week's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert interviewed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the recent Iraqi elections to adopt a new constitution. Rice reliably toed the Bush administration line in her poised manner. That changed when Russert asked about Americans for Rice, a group formed to draft Rice to run for president in 2008. To champion its cause, the group ran a 60-second ad on Sept. 27 in New Hampshire and again on Tuesday in Iowa. The ads aired during Commander in Chief, the new ABC series starring Geena Davis as the first female president of the United States. According to the Americans for Rice Web site, plans to rerun the ad are in the works. (It's also viewable at www.americansforrice.org.)

Running the ad during Commander in Chief is interesting, considering that some conservatives grumble that the series is a Hollywood plot to advance its liberal agenda – namely, to elect Hillary Clinton as president.

And I thought the Hollywood agenda was to make money.

The show ended, and I turned to my e-mail. What timing, I thought, to receive a forwarded message from Marie C. Wilson, president of the White House Project, a "national, nonpartisan" group "dedicated to advancing women's leadership across sectors ... including the U.S. Presidency." Wilson's message publicized an eight-month study, Who's Talking Now, which decries the under-representation of women on Sunday public affairs programs.

"Unfortunately, America gets most of its news and commentary from male voices and viewpoints," Wilson says. "We aim to change that by bringing women to the table ... creating a broader spectrum for debate."

At the end of Wilson's message she chirps, "Don't forget to watch Commander in Chief ...!"

Now, I'm not one to glom onto conspiracy theories, but somehow, I couldn't help but think something was wonky.

It doesn't surprise me that a pro-Rice ad was run during a "liberal" series like Commander in Chief. As Wilson writes at the White House Project Web site, part of the task of getting a woman into the White House is imagining it's possible. But after reading more about the White House Project, I was disenchanted.

First, how curious that of the five Sunday shows the Who's Talking Now report tracked – Meet the Press (NBC), This Week (ABC), Face the Nation (CBS), Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer (CNN), and Fox Sunday News (Fox) – no mention was made of To the Contrary (Sundays, 11am on PBS). This public affairs series features a women-only panel discussing issues of the day. Since it's on PBS, therefore being available to non-cable-subscribers and more accessible, you'd think it would be deserving of mention by this women-helping-women group.

As for gender balance, sure, why not? But the assumption that more women's voices automatically "broaden the spectrum for debate" is lame. It's more of that second-wave, white-driven idea that "women's issues" are uniform across race, class, regional, or cultural background. When has the left, the poor, or women of color been given a slice of space in mainstream media? When was the last time a Michael Eric Dyson or an Amy Goodman or a Patrisia Gonzalez appeared on mainstream news?

I wanted to cut Wilson some slack. Then, I read her group's press. In an Associated Press article by Caryn Brooks about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers discussing the predilection of pundits to focus on her appearance, marital, and parental status, Wilson bares all:

"Of course, I paid attention to how she looked! I pay attention as a woman every day to how people look. I'm 65 and from Georgia and was Miss Atlanta Junior, for God's sake. C'mon, I grew up as a girl."

I'm no idiot. I know that being attractive in this culture is valuable currency. But it was discombobulating that Wilson had absolutely no critique of the patriarchal lens through which women are determined to be "real" women. As for standards of beauty, it might shock Wilson to know that African-American, Latino, and other cultures are not as admiring of the boyish figures white women kill themselves to achieve.

Which all makes me wonder: If Geena Davis looked like Harriet Miers, would Wilson and her group be so swift to encourage us to watch Commander in Chief? Would Condoleezza Rice be pursued to run for president if she were a mother of kids by different men? What is the dream: that a woman can be admired for her intellect or that Malibu Barbie can be president of the United States, too?

As always, stay tuned.