Posted on 07/14/2007 10:45:33 PM PDT by Doofer
Joe, the guy behind the counter at the store in Canterbury Center, has a way of sniffing out the Next Big Story. Maybe this is because Joe reads all the papers first thing every morning. Or maybe it's because as a conservative curmudgeon he is quick to tap into the zeitgeist of the largely conservative, largely curmudgeonly blogosphere, where small stories echo and bounce and expand until they evolve into Big Stories and wind up in the MSM ("mainstream media" in blogspeak).
In any case, Joe is a goldmine of ideas for a columnist, especially one of a liberal bent like me. Which is why when I walked into the store one morning a few months ago, and Joe said I had to see something, I paid attention.
He held up a newspaper photograph of Fred Thompson, the actor-politician-lobbyist who is flirting with the notion of running for president. Thompson had his arm around a sexy blonde dressed in a revealing gown.
"That's his wife," Joe crowed. "She's got to be 30 years younger than him. You think he's going to get the women's vote with a wife who looks like that?"
Now it's a funny thing about Joe and me. We come from opposite ends of the political spectrum. But we often agree about things anyway. And on this one, my gut told me he was right.
I made a snap decision from that one photograph that Fred Thompson was married to a woman half his age, a C-list Hollywood actress with sketchy fashion sense. Such a wife, it seemed to me, put the lie to Fred Thompson's social conservatism. Moreover, such a wife was hardly first lady material - she was way too, well, sexy. As socially evolved as we all wish we were, in our guts we still think of first ladies as the Moms of America. And we really, really don't like to think about our moms having sex.
But by the time I got into my car, I was feeling pretty ashamed of my sniffiness. I mean, I consider myself a feminist, someone who should know better than to judge a woman by her looks. And intellectually I know that it's not right or fair or useful to make judgments about an older man being married to a younger woman, to allow sexist terms like "gold-digger" and "trophy wife" to even enter my head, never mind make it into my column.
But I'm trying to be honest here. We all make these kinds of assumptions when we see older men with young, attractive wives. We automatically conclude that such men, because they are successful and wealthy, treat women like expendable commodities, trading "up" when their first wives gets a little too wrinkly and gray. That the new wives are mercenaries, deploying looks and youth to capture wealth and prestige.
Va-voom
As it turns out, Jeri Kehn Thompson is 40, 24 years her husband's junior, but hardly jailbait. And no, she's not a C-list actress. She had a career before her marriage as a lawyer and media consultant at the Washington firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand. Before that, she worked for the U.S. Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee. And no, she's not a home-wrecker. Fred Thompson was divorced for many years before he even met his second wife.
Still, Joe and I weren't the only ones taking notice of Mrs. Thompson's va-voom photo last spring, and making snap judgments. Debate has raged in blog-land and in other media over the past few months, with the conversation veering from crass locker-room jokes (talk of pole-dancing and "the Thompson twins") to hagiographies comparing Mrs. Thompson to Jackie Kennedy. Last Sunday's New York Times ran a piece on the chatter entitled, "Will Her Face Determine His Fortune?"
The whole thing has got me thinking about what it is about first ladies that gets us so riled up in the first place. It's as if we've decided that the country needs its own Madonna, the mother figure to end all mother figures. A woman who is attractive but not too beautiful, feminine but de-sexualized.
Who is intelligent but not so brainy she's threatening. Who is elegant, graceful, tactful, tasteful, stylish, but not ostentatious. Who knows her way around a seating chart and a dinner menu and a wine list, how to hire a chef and choose a new china pattern, how to find the perfect White House dog but still has the common touch.
A woman who knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to speak. Who chooses her subject matter and causes carefully, apolitically. A woman who offers her husband wise council but isn't interfering, who protects him from distractions but looks the other way when he is indiscreet.
There's not a woman in America who fits this bill - what intelligent woman would want to? Somehow, though, smart, successful women keep getting talked into trying.
Constantly controversial
Do a little research into the history of American first ladies, and you'll discover that they've always been controversial creatures, some, like Dolley Madison adored by the American public and some, like Mary Lincoln, despised. The strange thing is the public seems to love first ladies for the same reasons they hate them. Mostly this has to do with spectacle - clothing, redecorating the White House and entertaining. Sometimes they're accused of spending too much money on pomp and style (Mary Lincoln), sometimes too little (the chronically depressed Jane Pierce), only rarely hitting the mark (Jackie Kennedy and Dolley Madison, both of whom, incidentally, were much younger than their husbands).
Jeri Thompson would do well to read up on the follies and fortunes of historical first ladies. She might start, if she wants some inspiration, with the biography of Frances Cleveland, the 21-year-old wife of Grover Cleveland, who was 27 years her senior.
America adored young Frances, who became a pop culture phenom in 1886, when she married the sitting president in the White House. Her photograph was everywhere, from the covers of ladies magazines to boxes of patent medicine. Young women copied everything about her from her hairstyle to her shoes, which led to an uproar among the more staid matrons of the day.
You see, Frances Cleveland apparently had lovely shoulders and quite a nice décolletage and she liked to show them off.
Dolley Madison, if her portraits are any indication, also liked to show a bit of cleavage, and she was one of the most popular first ladies ever.
But somehow, both Frances Cleveland and Dolley Madison managed to find the first lady sweet spot, the place where beauty is heightened by just the right amount of sex appeal.
Dolley and Frances had, well, good taste. And though I got a lot of things wrong about Jeri Thompson, I was right about her sketchy fashion sense. If she wants to be first lady, she's going to need a new mantra: Less is more. Less tan, less blonde, less Victoria's Secret. Less sex.
Poor Fred.
Mine passed the censors.
I mean, they could say MILF, or say they’d like to hit it as if it were a big base drum.
I put your name on my about page. It’s the only way I’ll keep a FR ping list at all my girlfriends houses and other places I post from.
I guess I have become the designated Jeri guy, eh?
LOL!
Yes...you are the designated Jeri guy. ;o)
We expect a lot from you.
Just how many girlfriends do you have?
1.
Why would any guy want more than 1 woman? Y’all are nuts! Well, except for my GF, she’s awesome. She’s smart, conservative, super=pretty and younger than me (2 years).
I’ll bet my ex wife considers her a trophy chick, but I am just a poor working schlepper, not much to be trophying for, IYKWIM.
I thought you were talking about the fugly troll in post #20, the other is just a poopy rear end.
Good boy!
One is all you need...
...or want. ;o)
Picture please ?
I dunno, it might be better to keep a 2nd backup, at least when the rabbit dies.
=runs and hides behind the sofa=
I’m not nuts.
I think one girlfriend is all you need.
And, I’m proud that you think so, too.
You speak very highly of her.
That is a point in your favor. ;o)
“IYKWIM.”
Okay...I’m not up on that stuff.
What do you mean?
Fortunately dixiechick freepmailed me the answer. :-)
No big deal to me.... just a natural part of what makes the world go round.
Bottom line: Ol’ Fred is one lucky man!
I’m at my other girlfriends house, but picture a cross between Marylin Monroe and Hmmm, Giada DiLaurentiss, dyed blonde, only way smarter, and with zero agenda but to enjoy a nice time wayching the waves hit the shore with me.
My daughters from a previous marriage all love her, and she never will get in the way of my dad role with them. She knows my babies are #1 to me.
My GF’s best feature is definitely her smile, btw, THE most important characteristic, right before eyes & a nice set of hoots. (yeah, I’m a dog, oh well.)
You better be hidin' real good! ;o)
If
You
Know
What
I
Mean
Giada who ? That one has me stumped. Well, at least you managed a follow-up. After my former fiancee ran off on me, I never could. That’ll be 4 years this October. :-(
I’m an engineer. like this bit:
An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.
The engineer said, “I like both.”
“Both?” they asked.
Engineer: “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done.”
LOL at ME!
Thank you!
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