Time for a First Gentleman

It was a speech writer, a woman, who wrote the words “kinder, gentler nation” that helped propel George Bush into the White House. But it is another woman, his wife Barbara, who is giving force to the words. In her self-effacing way, this smart First Lady has probably scored more political points for the President than any superpower summit could.

America loves leaders who poke fun at themselves. So when they said Barbara Bush looked like everybody’s grandmother (including, some said unkindly, her husband’s) she replied, “My mail tells me that a lot of fat, white-haired, wrinkled ladies are tickled pink.”

Barbara Bush is not pushing the conventional boundaries of the First Lady’s role. She is comfortable with who she is, and she has a talent for putting others at ease, be it Raisa Gorbachev, who for her own domestic political reasons probably needed a low-key visit; or the students of Wellesley, some of whom didn’t want the President’s wife as commencement speaker.

Mrs. Bush disarmed most of her Wellesley critics at Friday’s moving commencement ceremony by talking about respecting differences--and by throwing in humorous references to cinematic bad boy Ferris Bueller. Sure, the First Lady, not surprisingly, is no rebel. But did she tip her hand? “Somewhere out there,” she told the Wellesley graduates, “(there) may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the President’s spouse--and I wish him well.”