Dodd's bogey

National Review, March 23, 1998 by Richard Lowry

AFRIEND of mine makes a decent wage on Capitol Hill, but not the six figures of the top-level guys who advise the Speaker on which petting zoos to visit and how to smile in public. If he were on his own, he'd be quite comfortable. But he has a wife and three children, which means a lifestyle of constant money worries.

Lunches are brown-bag. There are no tickets to ballgames or the movies, let alone the Kennedy Center. And there is always the nagging thought that maybe they should go back to the Midwest where the cost of living isn't so high. Nonetheless, when he mentions that his wife stays at home he is always told, "Oh, you're so lucky," as if the arrangement were the result of a bequest.

Enter Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Out-of-Touch). Last issue, NATIONAL REVIEW quoted from a speech in which Sen. Dodd suggested mothers stay at home because they "want to go play golf or go to the club and play cards." If my friend were to tell the senator about his wife, Dodd would presumably respond: "Gee, what's her handicap?"

The remarks have understandably caused an uproar. So, the silver-haired senator -- last seen presiding over the DNC as Charlie Trie and John Huang pumped it full of cash (Dodd, of course, knows nothing about that) -- is busy ducking for cover.

A Dodd aide wrote NR demanding a retraction, complaining among other things that we didn't call to check the story. Just imagine how that conversation might have gone:

"Hi, I'm calling to check if the senator said what he said in his speech."

"No, he did not -- notwithstanding comments he may have made to the contrary."

That is essentially what the letter from Dodd's office maintains --such is the press secretary's art. It accuses NR of taking the comments out of context, so let's "contextualize" them.

First, Sen. Dodd tells us, "It is one thing to have the choice [to stay at home with your kids], that is a wonderful luxury, but for the overwhelming majority of the 13 million children who are in child-care centers, their parents don't have the choice, they have to be there."

This comment plainly suggests that stay-at-home moms are exercising a luxurious choice rather than acting on a sense of duty toward their kids.

Then: "It is not a question of 'I would like to stay at home, I have another spouse that is earning enough.' It is not a question of 'I want to go play golf or go to the club and play cards.' These are people trying very hard on their own or with their spouse to hold their families together. So the choice doesn't exist for them."

Dodd's aide spins this as praise of stay-at-home moms, when clearly Dodd is complimenting working mothers -- and in a way that slights their counterparts at home. It's an insult notable for several reasons.

First, even as a putdown it is absurd. If the senator had stay-at-home moms eating popcorn and watching Oprah that would be one thing. But his next example was probably going to be: "It is not a question of 'I want to have my driver take me in the Bentley in search of Special Reserve Dom Perignon."'

Second, it captures Washington's attitude toward mothers perfectly. As a recent article in the Washington Post Magazine noted, "Showing up at a Washington social gathering as just a mom is like showing up in your underwear: revealing and chilly."

Third, the economics is exactly backward. In 1993, the median income of married families with kids and the mother at home was about $15,000 less than for two-earner couples with kids.

All of this makes Sen. Dodd an ideal standard-bearer for child-care legislation to subsidize moms who leave their kids with strangers all day. It's sure to pass -- and sure to make the tax burden on families like my friend's all the heavier.

If Sen. Dodd won't apologize for his remarks, someone should at least apologize for that.