Go-Along First Lady Shows She Can Go It Alone

Gary Deane has This One on Laura Bush. The NY Times says Mrs. Bush, the public go-along spouse, shows increasing hints of an independent and determined woman underneath. Laura watchers like to recount her admonishments to Mr. Bush on the campaign trail to “rein it in, Bubba” when he got out of hand, or her more gentle pokes of fun at him in public.

Mrs. Bush attracts so little controversy that it was extraordinary last week when several booksellers accused her of pushing Amazon.com to the exclusion of libraries and independent bookstores in an appearance promoting children’s summer reading on the CBS program “The Early Show.” Booksellers said CBS had encouraged viewers to buy books for a literacy organization, First Read, via Amazon.com, while links to donate books to First Read on the network’s Web site also took people directly to Amazon.com.