I think I still need time to digest this. Tonight, Laura Bush was on The News Hour, appearing for a conversation with Jim Lehrer. Now, I realize she has been on other interview shows -- I recall seeing a clip of her most cordial and un-resentful response to Teresa Heinz Kerry's remarks that Ms. Bush hadn't worked a stitch in her life -- but I've avoided her for the most part. Usually she's been on with her husband, and that's enough for me to choose between changing channels or changing the contents of my stomach.

So tonight really was my first exposure to Laura Bush.

What a shock!

First realization: That beautiful, smiling woman with a sharp sense for her own fashion actually has a brain! Not only that, she's quite well spoken. Damn if I wasn't very impressed!

Where did this attitude of mine come from? Why did I assume she was a southern bumpkin? Maybe it was based in part on my impression that her daughters are total partying bimbos. Maybe it was based in large part on my conviction that her husband is a criminally negligent and dishonest president (although I gave her high marks for staying with him, and had to honor her influence before the final debate where she apparently got him to stop grimacing so much).

But this woman was impressive. You'd think she was doing this all her life. You'd never think, Oh well, she was a schoolteacher decades ago, so she can converse a little.

Second realization: Laura Bush is a progressive! I wonder if her husband knows. The way she spoke about children, about the influences of mentors, about the importance of not only strong educational environments but strong after-school programs, she was sounding off progressive views.

Apparently nobody ever took her aside to remind her of right wing values: shutting down public schools, eliminating after school programs (which have been targets since Howard Jarvis in the '70s), and discouraging education overall.

She also seemed to forget to thumb on the Bible. She didn't mention God or Jesus. She didn't talk about instilling "traditional Christian values" or any tripe like that. No, she spoke about studies showing that felonious adult behavior tends to arise out of poor first-grade environments, and that after-school programs help teens remain engaged with their peers outside of the contexts of gangs.

How long do you think they'll let her go before they shut her up and put her back into the velvet box?

You know, if the Republicans were smart, they would field Laura Bush as their next presidential nominee. She probably would have better odds than Hillary Clinton. Of course they would never do that, though. Their misogyny would get in the way.

Damn inconvenient somtimes, isn't it, wingnuts? Sometimes it must be so hard to stick by your generatoins-old legacies of bigotry.

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