Arianna on Teresa
I'll admit, Teresa Heinz-Kerry has made me feel a bit icky so far. She always seems a little bit, well, drunk, though I can't quite put my finger on it. Arianna Huffington thinks she's fabulous, and has convinced me to be more open-minded about it, in her column today (is anyone else incapable, by the way, of reading Arianna without hearing her voice in your head?):

Yes, she is indeed unabashedly open with her opinions on everything from the war in Iraq ("I would never have gone to war this way") to George Bush ("fazed by complexity") to Botox treatments (she's had them).

But isn't that what we claim to want from those in public life? Or are we comfortable with authenticity only when it's a contrivance manufactured to appear authentic?

"I am the product of living in dictatorships," Teresa has said. "It makes you cherish the ability to be yourself, to have feelings and to speak them when asked. People say I'm blunt. I say, 'No, just honest.'"

It's this honesty that has led the media to brand her with the scarlet O for offbeat – a caricature given national credence by a Newsweek cover that trumpeted: "Is John Kerry's Heiress Wife a Loose Cannon or Crazy Like a Fox?"
[SNIP]
It's hard to imagine that headline – which was written, incidentally, by a man – being used to describe a man. As Marlo Thomas once said: "A man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless. All a woman has to do is put you on hold."

Maybe it's just because I'm in the South that I'm a lot more comfortable with Elizabeth Edwards. Is it just me?