Two Dopey Statements By Mrs. Heinz Kerry

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Just about everyone knows that Teresa Heinz Kerry made this statement in an interview with USA Today. I call it Dopey Statement Number One:

Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a
sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real
job — I mean, since she's been grown up.

Groan. Then, showing that like her husband, she does not understand that the first rule of holes is that when you are in one, you must stop digging, she issued Dopey Statement Number Two:

I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and
there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children. As someone
who has been both a full-time mom and full-time in work force, I know we all
have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs.
Bush's service to the country as first lady and am sincerely sorry I had not
remembered her important work in the past.

Of course, Statement Number Two was issued by the campaign and was surely carefully (if not intelligently or sensitively) written. When I first heard the statement on the car radio, I thought it was a fairly gracious apology. Then I read the language. The statement clearly implies that, in Mrs. Kerry's view, if Mrs. Bush had not worked as a schoolteacher and librarian, and had been exclusively a full-time mother instead, she would not have ever had a "real job" and thus would not have been as wise and cosmopolitan as Mrs. Heinz Kerry, whose "real job" was evidently marrying a very rich man (John Heinz) and then becoming a philanthropist with his money.

Well, maybe the Kerry campaign figures it's not going to get the votes of full-time mothers anyway, so it's OK to slight them in this way. Still, it seems to me this can't be helpful to the Senator's efforts.

UPDATE: Here's Power Line's take on all this. John Hinderaker notes there:

Until this year, it had never occurred to me that a Presidential candidate's spouse could be an important factor in a campaign. This year, she just might be.