WAITE PARK, Minn., Aug. 10
Laura Bush has heard enough Teresa questions.
"Every interview," the first lady says, shaking her head when asked how often she's being queried on her outspoken counterpart, Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Teresa, Teresa, Teresa.
"It was the last question I got from the St. Paul reporter at the last event," Mrs. Bush says. She got Teresa questions from reporters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan on Monday, and in Wisconsin and Minnesota Tuesday. And there's still Iowa left to go before Mrs. Bush wraps up her two-day tour of scripted sweetness and devotion to George W. Bush -- in other words, her "I'm Not Teresa Tour."
Mrs. Bush is sitting in the back of a black Suburban en route to the St. Cloud, Minn., airport. She has just finished telling the workers at Gruber's Quilt Shop how great they are at making quilts and how great her husband is at being president.
When asked (and asked again) about Heinz Kerry, it is inevitably in the context of Heinz Kerry's recent hits of unintentional news, such as when she told a reporter to "shove it" or said that hecklers chanting "four more years" wanted "four more years of hell."
Mrs. Bush always offers some gracious variation on how she understands what Heinz Kerry is going through. Public life can get tense at times. "She and I are actually in the same boat," she says. "I'm sure we have empathy for each other."
First ladies seem to be publicly defined in relation to one another. Is a first lady or prospective first lady like Jackie Kennedy or Nancy Reagan? It's like descriptions of hail -- is it the size of a marble or a golf ball? -- as if first ladies exist as some kind of environmental phenomenon that come in a handful of predetermined sizes.
"Back four years ago, I always got the question, 'Are you going to be like Hillary Clinton or Barbara Bush?' " Mrs. Bush says, waving out the window to a group of supporters holding signs that read "W stands for Women." She says she believes that the American public actually has broad and nuanced perceptions of first ladies. But the media are inclined to use a shorthand.
"It's easier to put people in a box, let it be either/or," she says. "The fact is, all of the women who have been married to presidents have been much more complicated or complex than people perceive."
Is Mrs. Bush more complicated and complex than her public image?
"Sure," she says, and leaves it at that.
Either way, Heinz Kerry is much more likely to be called "complex" or "complicated," for better or -- at Laura Bush's campaign events -- for worse.
