President Hubby.

Will all the silly talk of impeachment in the air -- the new Congress wanting to impeach the president first, then come up with the charges later, I suppose -- I must say I am disgusted. Things have reached a pretty pass in Washington, I must say, a pretty pass.

It's a different outlook here. I've been honored to be the president now for quite some time, and I want to thank Congress for not impeaching me. At least not yet.

What I mean by this is probably not what you think. Years ago I read an essay on the topic of marriage by my spiritual guide, the great Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, who wrote:

If there must be a head, why the man? ... The relations of the family to the outer world—what might be called its foreign policy—must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests.
     The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife. If anyone doubts this, let me ask a simple question. If your dog has bitten the child next door, or if your child has hurt the dog next door, which would you sooner have to deal with, the master of that house or the mistress? Or, if you are a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?

All of this is very interesting, and almost as likely to cause fights in the time he wrote it as now. But I have come over the years to see that he was right in some key respects.

My wife always expects me to deal with the idiots in the outside world, something I hate to do. She has her own (excellent) career, where she deals with all kinds of people, but when it comes to things related to us and the house and all, I have to be the Executive Branch. (Get your mind out of the gutter, Stiiv.) I have to lead the diplomatic corps with repairmen, landscapers, plow guy, the guy who checks the meters, you name it. When it's takeout night, I get the takeout. If we get lost, or when we did before Google Maps, I was the one who had to ask the nice man in the gas station where the hell we were and how the hell to get where we were going.

On the other hand, my wife is the coequal power of Congress, holding the purse strings, making the laws, setting the legislative agenda. I can sign on to her laws, or I can veto them, but if she is two-thirds committed to a law, it gets passed over my veto. (She's not always that sold on it.) On the other hand, I may have grand ideas, but she can derail them pretty quickly. We forget in this country that Congress and the presidency are supposed to be equal powers, but we haven't forgotten it in this house.

It seems to work for us, anyway.

Oh, you're wondering about that third branch, the judiciary? Well, my mother-in-law passed away some years ago, but sometimes I think she still weighs in on cases....