Opinion> Connie Schultz> Women S Fixation On Trophy Wife Shows They Re No Prizes Themselves

	22 Nov 2009 Women's Reproductive Health Is Not a Social Issue Language matters, so let's be clear: Women's reproductive health is not a "social issue." Deciding … Read More.
	18 Nov 2009 11 Women Are Dead, and the Distancing Begins About two weeks into The Plain Dealer's coverage of the Imperial Avenue murders in Cleveland, some women from … Read More.
	15 Nov 2009 Cleveland Murders Raise Questions Around the World Over the past few weeks, Cleveland police have dug up 11 African-American women's bodies at the home of a … Read More.

Women's Fixation on Trophy Wife Shows They're No Prizes Themselves

Fred Thompson's possible run for the presidency raises a question apparently burning brains all across America:

How young is too young?

We aren't talking about the jowly 64-year-old who went from being a lawyer to a lobbyist to an actor to a politician to an actor playing a lawyer to a politician again.

How boring.

No, much of the recent debate around Thompson's possible candidacy is focused on his much younger wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson.

You might notice she kept her family name, too, which is the first clue that she's not the mindless muffy her many detractors wish to make her. I'm not saying that keeping your name means you're brilliant, but it's not exactly the M.O. of someone looking for a sugar daddy, either.

Mrs. Thompson is a beautiful woman. She has been photographed in dresses that don't always harness the evidence, which is typical eveningwear on the Hollywood circuit. This has put her in the cross hairs of those who want their potential first ladies as sensible and sexless as a pair of Hush Puppies.

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's replacement for Don Imus, had this on-air exchange with political commentator Craig Crawford:

Scarborough: "Have you seen Fred Thompson's wife?"

Crawford: "Oh, yeah."

Scarborough: "You think she works the pole?"

He later claimed he was not referring to strippers, but the recent exercise craze in which women gyrate around a dance pole. Like strippers.

Oh, much better.

It's easy to dismiss Scarborough as a guy with too much back hair. Far less easy to ignore, however, are the swipes coming from women.

Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan called the 40-year-old mother of two a "child wife," then compared her to a stripper (see a theme here?). New York Times reporter Susan Saulny's piece on Sunday was titled "Will Her Face Determine His Fortune?" — a curious title for a story devoted to the rest of Mrs.

Thompson's anatomy.

Saulny took a swipe at her "youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair," and asked, "Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?"

This is one of those times when it's downright embarrassing to claim membership in my gender.

Karen O'Connor, director of American University's Women and Politics Institute, offered Saulny this succinct description of the problem:

"I think women have an innate 'ick' reaction when they see a wife so much younger and vital than her husband." And so, she said, Fred Thompson's problem can be summed up in two words: Republican women.

Two more words: Ditto, Democrats. Think Dennis Kucinich, and all that unkind gossip.

O'Connor laughingly agreed Monday. "I had plenty of friends who read the Times story and called saying, 'This was definitely a bipartisan issue.'"

Most women take one look at those aging husbands, wearing grins tighter than a burped Tupperware lid, and immediately they deride their young wives as dimmer than nightlights.

"What do they talk about all day?" we shriek, as if marrying men our age guarantees a lifetime of riveting conversation at dinnertime.

Of course, it's more complicated than table talk. Every time we see a man our age opt for someone so much younger — so not like us — we can feel a personal rebuff, if not horror.

"You look at Thompson and you can't help but think, 'He couldn't find someone who doesn't look like his daughter?'" O'Connor said. "I've got single women friends in their 40s and 50s, and they look at him and think, 'Oh, my God, do I have to look for someone who's 75?'"

In the end, it's really about us, isn't it? We insist we are more than the sum of our parts, but want to reject some women as only a body.

We can't change the Fred Thompsons of the world, and condemning their young wives will never fix what ails us.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… And His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.