After Laura Bush’s speech last night, a woman in a cowboy hat from the Texas delegation was asked what she thought about Mrs. Bush. “She’s always been a lady,” said the delegate. Always a lady–a wonderful, old-fashioned, perfect thing to say about a the former school librarian who’d just delivered a prime time address to the entire world.


Feminists have been trying to put the best face on the emptiness of the opinions that Teresa Heinz Kerry boasted of having, the silly opinions of a very rich woman who’s never been challenged because most people she meets are her supplicants.


Mrs. Bush, on the other hand, did the job with consummate professionalism and warmth. No, she didn’t deliver a brilliant speech, but it was a very good speech, and she did a job that the obviously self-involved, self-centered, quasi-intellectual Teresa Heinz would never do.


“Heinz Kerry’s speech last month was about herself — explaining her values to an apprehensive America,” writes Dick Morris.


“Elizabeth Dole’s excellent 1996 speech talked about Bob. She told us about her husband’s background and humanity.


“Hillary Clinton’s speech was about her own political career and agenda, in effect, running for first lady…and beyond.


“But Laura Bush’s speech last night was about us. She showed how her husband’s policies affect our daily lives.”


Feminists would say that she subordinated herself to him. But does anybody really believe that Laura Bush is anything other than a strong partner with good political instincts? And does anyone believe that we’d pay any attention to Teresa’s opinions–which may sound okay in Georgetown or Nantucket, or the sliver of Idaho where she has a house–if she didn’t have a billion dollars? (Note to Teresa: Next time you address the free world, get some interesting opinions.)


I missed most of the Bush daughters, but I gather they flopped as a comedy routine, though Andrew Sullivan loved the “upper class brats.”


The Washington Post had a report:


“‘Gammie, we love you dearly, but you’re just not very hip. She thinks “Sex and the City” is something married people do, but never talk about.’ There was an uncomfortable tittering in the room. The twins, with their trendy clothes and edgy lines and award-show delivery, seemed to be taking GOP moderation way too far.


“The president and first lady are somewhat hipper than their grandmother, Jenna said. ‘They do know the difference between mono and Bono,’ a line that fell flat. ‘When we tell them we’re going to see OutKast, they know it’s a band and not a bunch of misfits.'”


The twins need a new gag writer, but at least they didn’t come up with anything as positively weird as the Kerry girls, one of whom told of her father’s giving CPR to a drowned hamster, leaving Inkwell with an image she has not in subsequent weeks managed to shake.


P.S. Where’s Teresa? Have you noticed that the Kerry campaign seems to have hidden her? Bring back Teresa, we want to hear some more of her opinions!


P.P. S. The IWF’s Travis McSherley who did hear the Bush girls, informs me that they, too, had a hammie line. Notes Travis: “The best line of the night from the Bush twins actually was a throwback to your nightmarish hamster story.  Their version: ‘We had a hamster, too.  Let’s just say…ours didn’t make it.'”