HOW SHE SEES IT Teresa Heinz Kerry still making political waves

By ANN McFEATTERS
BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE
WASHINGTON -- I was going to write about Teresa Heinz Kerry's hair until I had breakfast with Rick Santorum, the combative No. 3 GOP leader in the Senate who is fighting to become No. 2.
Santorum was in high dudgeon, demanding to know why the liberal press had not made a bigger issue of "what Teresa Heinz Kerry said."
No, not the "shove it" comment she made during the Democratic National Convention to a reporter from a conservative newspaper that doesn't like her.
Santorum was outraged about the "ick" word.
Somehow I had missed reading that fashion designer Kenneth Cole had an interview with Sen. John Kerry's wife for the current issue of Harper's Bazaar. Cole reportedly asked her for her thoughts about the term "first lady," and Heinz Kerry reportedly said, "Ick."
Apoplectic
I thought maybe the Pennsylvania lawmaker was apoplectic because he thought the ketchup heiress was demeaning the current first lady, the redoubtable Laura Bush. But no, Santorum understood that Heinz Kerry was talking about the term, not the present holder of the title.
I said that I had at one time or another talked to some former first ladies, including Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who weren't comfortable with the term, either -- because it left no room for a man to be in that job and because it suggested that this one woman, unelected and unpaid, was above all other women in the land. The former first ladies, however, had never said "ick" about it.
I suggested that Heinz Kerry meant simply that maybe it's time to come up with another term for "first lady," just as the Supreme Court dropped its term "Mr. Justice" before Sandra Day O'Connor even was nominated or confirmed for the job in 1981. In fact, Heinz Kerry's comments as reported were: "There will be a first man one of these days, a first gent, I hope. First lady, I don't know. I always said having three sons, two male dogs and my late husband, I was the only first lady at my house."
But Santorum was not to be dissuaded from his anger. The term "first lady," he said with finality, is "traditional," and he, for one, was offended by Heinz Kerry's apparent disdain for it -- even though she, a Pennsylvanian, is one of his constituents and was a fellow Republican until last year.
Santorum is not alone. A reader of The Kansas City Star wrote: "Her terminology is offensive, in my opinion. We have always referred to the spouses of our presidents as 'first ladies.' To me this is an honor."
Values
Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, also was offended and released a statement. "As Mrs. Bush visits my home state of Ohio ..., I am proud to have a first lady in office who has embraced leadership with class, backed her husband unconditionally with grace and represents the values every woman can admire."
Well, there you have it. The post of first lady is an "office." Perhaps we should have non-debate debates between the spouses of presidential candidates and between the spouses of running mates to see who more "unconditionally" backs her husband.
We Americans don't know what we want of our first ladies except that we want them to be attractive, but not too attractive; well-dressed, but not too well-dressed; articulate, but not outspoken; warm, but not too warm; assertive but not too assertive; husband-supporting, but not doormats.
Ick.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service