On envy

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Laura Bush, first lady
Re: Burma op-ed

Dear Mrs. Bush,

First of all, let me congratulate you on your success on being the wife of a world leader. I know I haven't spoken to you directly in many years, but I just thought you should know you've been in my thoughts. When my hands roam and my mind drifts, I think of the times we used to share in the back of that Chevy so long ago. Anyway, all awkwardness aside, I'm happy for you.

And I was pleased to read your recent Wall Street Journal op-ed about the military regime in Burma. Your calls for them to step aside and make way for democracy, I'm sure, won't fall on deaf ears. What are the desperate cries of a tired and huddled mass of monks compared to the crisply typed prose of the U.S. president's wife? Pitter patter, that's all.

But I wondered why you wrote this piece yourself. Shouldn't such headstrong and morally superior rhetoric be coming from your husband? Or at least from his iron-assed mistress, Condoleezza Rice? (Sorry, Laura, I'm sure that's a sore spot.) I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm used to you taking a stand for adult literacy and patting the heads of little Aryan Easter egg hunters on the White House lawn, but I was a little surprised to see your supple toes planted in the door of foreign policy.

I wonder, Laura, if you're not grooming yourself for a presidential run of your own. It makes sense, of course, what with Hillary Clinton's apparent success on the campaign trail. After all, you may be the First Lady, but she was First Lady first. That has to sting a little. But I'm not sure you have the chops for a shot at the highest office. I know you have a vagina, and I'm pretty sure Hillary does as well, but that may be the only thing you have in common. America may not be ready to elect a female president, but it looks like it might be ready to elect Mrs. Clinton. After all, she's demonstrated a very masculine proficiency in pigheadedness and duplicity. I'm not saying Hillary is a man, but I am saying that special interest groups in this country have grown used to paying off politicians not so much in traceable cash, but instead in the more ephemeral pleasures of hot and cold running whores. Not so much your bag, I know, but Hillary seems to have reached some kind of compromise--at least with the health insurance industry.

I think you're too delicate for this game, Laura. That isn't a sexist insult, either. Your tenderness is what attracted me to you in the first place. You were like a soft, squishy oasis in the middle of the desert. To run for president, you'd have to have a heart and a laugh as cold and robotic as your stare. Not to mention the fact that you'll have to maintain a family values front by sticking with that dullard husband of yours. No, Laura, I think it's best if you slip quietly out of the public life next year. Leave the keys to the Lincoln bedroom to someone else, and become your own woman again before it's too late.

Love,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman

PICTORIAL BONUS: Click here for an exciting picture of Laura Bush--a favorite from my collection.