Free Republic

"That's no first lady, that's my wife!" -- Badabump. -- It's open season apparently on the wives and children of GOP presidential candidates. In a display of judgment worthy of People magazine, Washington Post editors decided the fact that Mrs. Fred Thompson once had a boyfriend when she was single is big news. (Gee, did Michelle Obama? Would Elizabeth Edwards kiss on a first date?) Meanwhile, The New York Times ran a story on the Giulianis' response to Vanity Fair's nasty little gossipy profile of Judith Giuliani, Giuliani's Princess Bride." OK, so the tiara was a bit much. And true,...

Republican Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri, is caught between two images: blond, beautiful companion to her older husband and powerful, behind-the-scenes player in his would-be presidential campaign. Washington in recent days has been abuzz about the 40-year-old second wife of former Tennessee Sen. Thompson after she was pinpointed as playing a leading role in a shake-up in the Hollywood actor's campaign staff. Thompson publicly defended her after articles appeared in The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine. The Post called her a "driving and at times divisive force" within Thompson's nascent organization and Newsweek said supporters of the 6-foot-6 conservative former senator...

Is Fred Thompson running for president and, if so, why is he waiting so long to announce? That two-part question is being asked a lot. The answer to the first part is yes. But, speculation as to why the former Tennessee senator/Hollywood actor is taking so long to make a formal announcement is up for interpretation. A few views - some legitimate and some not: 1. He is waiting to announce simply because he can. Since news broke last March that Thompson was considering a presidential run, interest in his candidacy has consistently risen. He has gone from not registering...

On a hot Saturday in June 2002, Fred D. Thompson married his second wife, Jeri Kehn, in an unventilated Congregational church in her home town of Naperville, Ill. Kehn, in a Valentino gown, was a 35-year-old media consultant for a Washington law firm; Thompson, a 59-year-old U.S. senator from Tennessee. "I think he will be a calming influence, and she will be good for him," Kehn's mother, Vicki Keller, said at the time. It was a triumphal return for Kehn, who had left Naperville for college and spent much of her 20s biding her time in Nashville without a clear...

Speaking at his $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington on Monday night, Fred Thompson began by introducing "my campaign manager -- oh, I mean my wife." That little joke about Jeri Thompson reveals how the prospective Republican presidential candidate regards the attack on his intelligent, beautiful wife. As the actor-lawyer-politician nears his long-awaited official announcement, Mrs. Thompson is slurred as a "trophy wife" -- privately by her husband's opponents for the Republican nomination and publicly by the media. Even Thompson supporters grumble that Jeri, 40, is too alluring, that she should modify the way she dresses...

She has sometimes been dismissed as a tanned and bleached blonde "trophy wife", only ever glimpsed in sleek and glamorous outfits on the arm of her much older spouse. Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri, is a lawyer and a Republican political operative. But in the past few days Jeri Thompson has suddenly emerged as the real political power behind her husband Fred's presidential campaign. Mr Thompson, 64, a former senator and actor who is running second in most polls of Republican nominees even before he has officially declared his candidacy, last week replaced his campaign manager in a shake-up of his...

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...

Ah, the spouse story. Journalists can't get enough. What will Bill mean for Hillary? Will Rudy's wives be a liability? How much height does Kucinich's wife have on him? And now: "Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?" Seriously. That's a quote. It comes from the New York Times, which put its story on the potential ramifications of Fred Thompson's wife – and, specifically, the fact that she might be considered a "trophy" – in the "Fashion & Style" section. We already know about Thompson's "colorful dating history." Thompson tried to frame the coverage of said history...

Fred Thompson is going to present a problem for a mainstream media that is used to reporting on political candidates who enjoy the affections of younger women – just as long as their wives don't find out. The media isn't quite sure how to handle a man who has a comprehensive past with the ladies, is probably running for office and yet isn't busy herding more illicit humps into his closet than an Abu Dhabi camel smuggler with the cops banging on the front door. Back in his single days, Thompson date

You might think last night's Republican debate is the big political story. But there are a couple of things bouncing around the blogosphere that have a bit more sex appeal than 10 middle-aged white guys on a stage. They involve (deep breath here) the candidates' wives, especially Fred Thompson's wife. So let's do a little bit of counterprogramming before we dive into the debate chatter