Gals about town really ought to raise an apple martini to President Bush. And make it a double. You can loathe his views on abortion, his FDA’s sluggishness on an over-the-counter Plan-B pill, or his insistence that all people should be free (which sadly requires a war), but the man is setting a sterling example of how to treat women in the workplace.

On Monday, Mr. Bush nominated Karen Hughes as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, a post that carries enormous weight in a world that is currently less than friendly toward America. She’ll report to the secretary of state, who also happens to be a woman, Condoleezza Rice.

Both of these posts have been occupied by women in the past, so Mr. Bush isn’t really breaking any ground. President Clinton was lauded for appointing Madeleine Albright as the first secretary of state. And before Ms. Hughes in the public diplomacy spot came a former advertising executive, Charlotte Beers, and a diplomat, Margaret Tutwiler.

What’s so special here, ironically, is that the appointments of Ms. Rice and Ms. Hughes have been so matter-of-fact. Another day, another nomination.

There’s been little self-congratulatory bloviating about how important women are. Ms. Rice and Ms. Hughes are his close advisers, first and foremost. That they are women is almost inconsequential. Both were brought into Mr. Bush’s circle, trusted, and promoted based on their abilities. Mr. Bush huddles with Mr. Hughes just as he does with Karl Rove. He may, indeed, have a closer connection – ideologically – to Ms. Rice than he did to her predecessor, Colin Powell.

It’s all sort of no big deal.

Only it is a big deal. This level of respect and equality in the workplace is a major part of what feminism was all about – and it’s playing out at the highest level of government.

In this case, Mr. Bush is moving forward, whereas President Clinton took us all back a few steps with the Monica Lewinsky thing. In all its Oval Office ugliness, their affair reduced young women in offices to sex objects at the copy machine, ripe for the picking by powerful men.

Can (and will) liberals give Mr. Bush the credit he deserves? Time will tell, but if Mr. Bush were a Democrat appointing these women, he’d be lauded as a hero. (Though maybe celebrating him as the first female president, as Mr. Clinton was called the first black president, is going a little too far.)

At least one prominent women’s advocate gently acknowledged the import when I asked.

“It’s always important when women get appointed to high places. To make women in high places a normal thing is the goal of our organizations,” said the chairwoman of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, Martha Burke. “Our politics don’t mesh with the secretary or Karen Hughes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t support their appointments.”

I’m still waiting for calls back from Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation and Kim Gandy of NOW.

At any rate, let’s hope that more men at the top of their organizations take a cue from Mr. Bush in this regard. What does that sort of thinking take? What gives him the ability to have such straightforward and solid relationships with the women who advise him?

One answer may be the normalcy in the rest of his life. Laura Bush is a steady, gracious first lady, and by all evidence, a solid, stand-by-your man wife. She hasn’t gone bonkers during her stay the White House or caused embarrassment for the administration in any way. Quite to the contrary, she was a major asset on the campaign trail. The Bush twins are a touch unruly, but they’re pretty standard young women when you compare them to children of other famous families.

Then, of course, there’s the no-nonsense maternal presence of Barbara Bush. Her son grew up with the example of a good marriage and a vibrant woman at the head of the household. Her influence should not be discounted.

There’s also the fact that Mr. Bush has a chief executive’s mien. Business is business. He likes people who get the job done whether they’re in trousers or skirts.

But it may also be the one thing that Blue Staters fear so much about Mr. Bush: his religion. Could it be that Christianly respect for others as human beings has led this president to meet the goals of feminism? Now that’s rich. The universe must be folding in on itself.

Whatever it is that makes Mr. Bush a man who can deal with women on a level playing field, it should be noted, and it should become part of his legacy.

Yes, it is a big deal. Take a look at the photographs of Ms. Hughes walking one step behind Ms. Rice from the news conference on Monday. Time after time, it’s men in those kinds of photographs. If not for Mr. Bush’s approach to the appointments, the people in those photos would be wearing navy suits, dull ties, and close-clipped D.C. haircuts. It matters that they’re in pearls.