Sunday, February 22, 2004

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Smart. Centered. Unpretentious. Nice.

Those are some of the adjectives used to describe Laura Bush in Ann Gerhart's new book.

Joe Cavaretta, Associated Press First Lady Laura Bush participates in a roundtable discussion on education this week at the Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas. "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush" By Ann Gerhart, Simon & Schuster ($23)

But these personal qualities, laudable as they are, don't necessarily make for an interesting biography. Oh, for the days of Nancy and Hillary and, even, Laura's mother-in-law, Barbara, who was very popular but known for a tart tongue.

Now those ladies made for great reading.

Gerhart, a reporter for The Washington Post Style section, labors mightily to inject drama and complexity into what has been dubbed variously as a "meditation" or a "portrait" of the 57 -year-old wife of the president -- but without much success.

Instead, this biography reads more like a stretched out version of Gerhart's interview notes with Laura Bush, peppered with lots of speculative psychobabble. ("She wanted to be needed. Being needed did not feel like surrender to Laura Bush.")

And except for a much-publicized chapter on the rambunctious, Margarita-loving, spotlight-averse Bush twins, there is nothing much in the way of news here.

It's not for lack of trying, though. Gerhart spends pages and pages analyzing every utterance by Bush, a trying exercise given the benign quality of the first lady's answers to every question.

And when that fails, Gerhart uses quotes Bush gave to other journalists, Bob Woodward and Texas Monthly writer Paul Burka among them, for juicier insights into a woman who is skilled at masking her true feelings to prying reporters (to Woodward, Bush admitted she didn't sleep easily in those first days after Sept. 11; to Gerhart, the answer was a more bland, "We know our lives have changed.")

She's a pro at dealing with the press, able to toss some newsworthy tidbits here and there -- most recently, she's been quoted as saying she's unhappy with criticisms of her husband by the Democratic candidates -- but Bush has never revealed any feelings beyond those that are deemed politically appropriate.

Not even to Gerhart.

Gerhart traveled with Mrs. Bush and observed her at innumerable public occasions, but it cannot be said that she knows her any better than any other member of the media, which is to say, not at all.

She tries, though. She spends time in Midland, Texas, visiting Laura Bush's high school, talking to old friends and acquaintances.

She visits the poor inner-city schools where Bush taught in Dallas and in Austin; and the simple, Spanish-style church where she was married.

Gerhart pores over police records related to the fatal car accident that scarred the first lady's life early on, when, at 17, Laura Welch plowed her family's car through a stop sign and killed another teenager.

But again, it's all been written about before.

Gerhart plumbs Bush's psyche from a relentless Inside-the-Beltway perspective. She expresses shock that Bush's friends from her youth -- who remain her friends today -- are liberals (one is a midwife in Berkeley) while still remaining happily married to a political conservative.

Gerhart, a self-described "addled" woman with three kids, a messy house and a great, demanding job, can't fathom Laura Bush's choice early in life to be a supporter of her husband without complaint, subsuming her needs and opinions -- at least publicly -- to his.

She also expresses puzzlement and some hurt at the fact that, when she wrote to Mrs. Bush for permission to interview her for this book, her queries never even received a response, which was surprising to Gerhart, since she "is meticulous about answering all sorts of correspondence."

"The word was passed back to me that Karen Hughes, then a special adviser to the president and his specialist in message control, had decreed that Mrs. Bush would not sit for interviews for this book. I have never received an explanation for this decision."

Well, Hughes is no dummy, and she probably must have known what was up: Inevitably, any discussion of Laura Bush's life and "choices" would involve discussion of her twin daughters, and that would not make for flattering reading, at least in this stage of the girls' lives.

Sure enough, the chapter on the twins is a devastating portrait of two spoiled teenagers who could care less about their parents' dedication to public service, seeing it only as something that gets in the way of their having fun.

Is it a truthful portrait? It's difficult to know. But many readers may recognize their own 17-year- old daughters in Barbara and Jenna and say, what's the big deal?

Here, Bush is portrayed as someone less than perfect, an overly lenient parent who repeatedly forgives and excuses the twins' wild behavior, much to her husband's irritation.

Gerhart theorizes that her permissive parenting comes from having nearly lost the twins late in her pregnancy -- after years of trying to have children.

Despite the unflattering portrait of her children, it is here, in Chapter 7, that Laura Bush becomes human, someone far more interesting than the book's title.

If only the other 188 pages were that revealing.

Mackenzie Carpenter can be reached at mcarpenter@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1949.

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