Heinz Not the Condiment Here

Ruth Miller

I’m going to be forthright and say that Laura Bush freaks me out. My friends and I have a term for people like her -- she has “bad eyes.” People with “bad eyes” don’t change facial expressions, ever. They look fine until some sort of response is expected of them, and then they just look forced and make everyone else nervous. People with “bad eyes” are the ones that laugh too hard and make you feel required to laugh because it’s so damn creepy that they can sound like they’re laughing without giving any visual indication of humor.

It’s this single-dimensionality that makes Laura Bush the oft-repeated “perfect wife.” That’s “perfect” in the spirit of Mamie “Ike runs the country; I turn the pork chops” Eisenhower. Coddled by over-zealous White House security and a reelection campaign that’s better planned than the reconstruction of Iraq, Mrs. Bush is paraded as a friendly face on her husband’s agenda (bad eyes or no, she’s still easier on our eyes than Dick Cheney.)

Mrs. Bush was born in Midland, Texas, inspired by her second grade teacher, worked as a public school librarian, met, married and beget children with George Walker Bush. You couldn’t write a more wholesome biography.

Basically, Laura Bush is the ideal, non-threatening spouse for a presidential candidate. She champions education -- a historically female role. She sits, nodding and smiling, ever pristinely, aside her husband in interviews. Her plastic insincerity, like a bendable, malleable, and utterly indifferent Barbie doll, is the face of “compassionate conservatism.” She conjures the image of a complacent housewife smiling and hawking prunes to her children “for their own good.”

The challenging first lady, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is also subject of much discourse. That’s about all these two ladies have in common.

Mrs. Kerry was born in Mozambique, worked for the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations, is multi-lingual, twice married and a proud grandmother.

Married into fortune? That gold-digger! Remarried? The harlot! Career philanthropist? Why, she’s never worked a day in her life! Foreign-born? Blasphemy! Boy howdy, I’ve heard this one has got a mouth on her, too!

Married into fortune? Let’s give her husbands some credit and assume they saw something genuine in her. Remarried? Just like a large portion of Americans. Big deal. Career philanthropist? That’s all a first lady does once their husband is elected. Consider it a lifetime of job training. Foreign-born? Multilingual? What a wonderful asset to a country currently failing in foreign relations. A bit of finesse and culture would benefit the presidency, and the country as a whole.

My favorite criticism is her mouth. So she’s a little blunt. Candor and honesty -- what a liability! The negative reaction to Mrs. Kerry’s style is just another sign that we aren’t as progressive as we like to think we are. Outspokenness is rarely pointed out in men, but always causes quite a stir when found in women. What sort of world do we live in where we punish those that are honest?

Laura Bush represents the old role of women in politics. She’s an accessory to her husband; a token of diversity in the W.A.S.P. hive. She’s a kind and gentle person, but in a business of less than kind persuasion, she sits on the sidelines watching. What a great role model for girls -- be a cheerleader.

Teresa Heinz Kerry represents the modern woman. She can clearly think for herself. She proves this every time she opens her mouth. She isn’t a static character. Her first husband was a Republican senator, she changed with the times. She reminds the Republican elite why they hate Hillary Clinton so much -- the idea of a powerful, competent woman threatens the very fabric of a crumbling male-dominated political scene. It’s not enough to keep a woman out of the Oval Office, but we can’t have a strong one in the building, period.

While it is understood that we are all to vote upon the candidate, and not their wife, one cannot help but compare the first ladies. One of these women represents women of the 20th century, and one represents women of the 21st century.