NYT: The Other Doctor in Dean's House Shuns Politics

[kskiska]

BURLINGTON, Vt., Jan. 12 — Eddie Kasperowicz, 74 and retired from the Seabrook, N.H., auto plant that Howard Dean was touring the other day, had a question unrelated to his union's hot-button issues of trade and health care. "When," he wondered, "will America have a chance to meet your bride?"

No time soon, Dr. Dean told him, "unless you get sick in Shelburne, Vt., in which case she'll probably see you."

In 23 years of marriage, 18 of which Dr. Dean has spent running for, or serving in, office, his wife, Judith Steinberg Dean, has developed an unusual role for the political spouse: invisible.

(snip)

"I do not intend to drag her around because I think I need her as a prop on the campaign trail," Dr. Dean said last week in Iowa. "If she wanted to do it, it'd be great, but she doesn't want to do it, and therefore if she does do it, it won't be great. I just think she should do what she needs to do for her own happiness and satisfaction."

(snip)

Her patients joke, now, about chartering a bus to Washington for checkups, while the pundits muse about how the Secret Service would handle privacy concerns. Dr. Steinberg said she planned to keep practicing medicine if her husband is elected, but she had seen enough episodes of "The West Wing" to know that were she to become the real-life version of Stockard Channing's Dr. Bartlett — wife of the fictional President Bartlett — she would "certainly have to do some public events."

"I'd do the ones that Howard would think were most important," she said.

(snip)

"I just want to say I'm glad your wife is your wife and I'm glad she does what she does," Ms. Grunewald, 53, told Dr. Dean at a recent forum. "We don't all need Laura Bush and mommy in the White House."

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/01/13/politics/campaigns/13JUDY.html

[wtmusic]

1. No we don't need Laura Bush in the White House

and tell her to take her other half with her!

[candy331]

2. Are they that desparate for news?

Why not keep with the Plame story and now the O'neill story and that would give them plenty to write about.

[asjr]

3. You said it.

But even if they covered it they would push it from Shrub's point of view. They have to follow orders. Mainstream media are in his hip pocket. They are the ones unpatriotic. It really makes me ill.