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Mr. and Mrs.President

See How They Ran

Clearly, what passes for a ruckus in the East Wing isn't what it used to be. Eight years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton spent her first months as first lady leading an ill-fated effort to overhaul the nation's healthcare system, advising her husband on all manner of issues, defending herself against charges of impropriety, and acquiring a mushrooming list of enemies.

That's not Laura Bush's way. She is more garden club than healthcare task force, more homebody than world traveler, more listener than stump speaker. And all, apparently, quite by choice, ushering in her own era as perhaps the first post-feminist first lady.

Asked how she will assist her husband, Bush told U.S. News: "I think I can help him best by being who I am, by working on the education issues that I've been interested in my whole life. I also think that's the way I can make the biggest impact on our country. But I think I can help him also by allowing both of us to have a private life, to get away to our ranch, to entertain friends and family members at our ranch, which gives both of us the chance to relax and visit with people."

The vision illuminates a larger truth. Laura Bush is the center of her husband's emotional support system in much the same way Nancy was to Ronald Reagan and Bess was to Harry Truman. Friends say Laura knows when to pull Bush back, how to humble him, and when to simply stand at his side. At the president's urging, she travels often with him, sometimes reading critical passages from newspaper articles aloud to tease him. With mock displeasure, he will shout: "I'm on a news blackout, Bushie."

Normalcy. Laura Welch Bush is, quite simply, the ballast that keeps her husband steady. She was a principal reason he stopped drinking in 1986–telling him, by some accounts, to choose between her or the bottle. Her abiding Methodist faith helped inspire Bush to take Christianity seriously. (Her spirituality deepened after an auto accident on Nov. 6, 1963, two days after her 17th birthday. Laura Welch didn't see a stop sign and ran into a car driven by a close friend, who died at the scene. No one was charged in the accident, but she accepted responsibility.)

Today, friends describe George W. and Laura as the portrait of normalcy–precisely the image the White House wants to create after the turbulent two-for-the-price-of-one Clinton years.

The president, to no one's surprise, is one of his wife's greatest admirers. In an impromptu interview with U.S. News late last week, he said: "Look, Laura can set her own policy. She's doing her own thing. And she's going to make a difference in people's lives. There's not this kind of coordinated campaign where she and I are at the top of our respective organizations and we sit down and plot strategy."

But that doesn't mean she's not a player. Laura Bush may avoid in-your-face partisanship and headline-grabbing events. But she won't spend all her time pampering her husband and staying out of the way either. Laura "helps people understand what the president is like," her husband says, "because, after all, we spend a lot of time together ... and some might say it requires a woman of great patience to be married to the president."

As she becomes better known, her friends and advisers predict, Laura Bush will be seen as the calm, good-natured schoolteacher everyone wanted to have in second grade (which she taught three decades ago). Sensing an understated star power, the White House is starting to place Laura Bush more and more in the public eye–moves that coincide with her emerging sense of confidence. She led reporters from USA Today on an hourlong tour of the family's 1,583-acre spread near Crawford, Texas. And got a glowing front-page story in the newspaper saying the Bushes' "dream home and ranch are models of eco-friendly technology." People magazine called her an "unpretentious Midland girl" who would avoid polarizing people, and she appears on the current cover of Oprah Winfrey's magazine, the subject of a flattering profile. Last week, she showed up on CNN's Larry King Live and chatted amiably for an hour.

All that attention could help her husband. He lost the majority of women's votes in November, and his environmental and energy policies–even with recent moderations–are anathema to many suburban women. Some women worry that, in presenting such a refreshing antidote to her predecessor, Laura Bush may be being used by her husband's administration to mask the harder edge of some of his policies. "My principal concern," says Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, "is that, like Barbara Bush before her, she will provide the compassionate face of the administration, as Barbara provided the kinder, gentler side of that administration. Overall, I feel positively about her. Politically, I fear she provides cover."

Bush says her agenda is straightforward. An avid reader, she is planning a series of Washington national book festivals, patterned after similar events in Texas, starting in early September to raise money for libraries. In October, she will work as a substitute teacher in various elementary schools to call attention to her signature issues of recruiting more teachers and improving reading skills. She is also looking for ways to enhance historic preservation and increase awareness of breast cancer. Says Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a historian of first ladies: "She certainly is not the political animal that Hillary Clinton was as first lady, and she won't get into areas beyond her purview. And she is careful not to betray her level of influence on the president, although with first ladies there is always more influence than meets the eye."

There has also been more focus on the first lady as a result of the way Hillary Clinton redefined the role–something that, oddly enough, given Laura Bush's determination to be a more quiet presence, may work to her advantage. "She is something of a healing presence," says Gil Troy, history professor at McGill University, who wrote a book about first couples. "Even as she has been un-Hillary, I don't think that comes across as a major step backward for women because she does not come across as frilly or frivolous or ditzy or any of these unpleasant stereotypes."

Laura Bush never dreamed of a political life. She wanted to settle with a nice husband, to raise nice kids, to build a nice career. She came from comfortable means in Midland, Texas, the only child of a father who built homes and a mother who kept the books for the family business. She earned an education degree from Southern Methodist University in 1968 and a master's in library science from the University of Texas in 1973. She taught and then worked as a librarian in public schools in Dallas, Houston, and Austin from 1968 to 1977, when she married Bush.

She prides herself on an unaffected, no-frills attitude that the public may well see as refreshing. She wears off-the-shelf Cover Girl makeup, sensible clothes, and has yet to change her low-maintenance hairstyle. She focuses on her twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, who have just started college, and phones each of them several times a week. She has a weakness for antique furniture and loves browsing for bargains.

Garden party. Everyone knows Washington can change a new arrival, but so far the capital seems to have had little effect on Bush. This month, she hosted 13 members of her Austin garden club for a city tour and three nights at the residence. She took the group to the National Arboretum, Mount Vernon, and Dumbarton Oaks, and dined at Jeffrey's, a new Tex-Mex restaurant. One night turned into a slumber party as the group wore their pajamas in the solarium to gab well beyond Mrs. Bush's normal 10 p.m. bedtime. At another point, says Peggy Weiss, a friend of Laura's since they were in the same Brownie troop at age 7, "I remember us all sitting on the Truman Balcony, laughing and talking. She had kicked her shoes off and had the dogs in her lap. She looked and talked like the same old Laura." Says Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican and longtime family friend: "She wants to be Laura Bush, wife of George W. Bush ... and I think people will get used to the different type of first lady than we've had recently. She doesn't seek attention. I have not known her to give him political advice, but she's become a valued sounding board to him."

The president, for his part, knows his wife can take him down a peg or two when need be. "If I get a little obstreperous, she'll put me in my place," he told U.S. News. "It's either teasing, or she can be pretty straightforward for a mild-mannered West Texas lady."

All this represents one of the many changes ushered in by the Bush administration as it reaches its 100-day mark. Most of the attention has been focused on Bush's tax-cut plan and his budget priorities. But another story is evolving from the number of strong female appointees the president has surrounded himself with while the first lady has stepped back into a less prominent role. That's obviously a reversal of the Clinton model. In Bush II, women–from senior counselor Karen Hughes to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice–have a seat at the table when all major policies are made.

Which is not to say that Mrs. Bush doesn't have her own prominence–and her own perils. "The problem with being first lady is that it's a lot like being Caesar's wife," says Patricia Schroeder, former Democratic representative from Colorado. "If you don't do anything, you are too bland. If you do something, you are too strident. I don't envy anyone who has that role."

Mrs. Bush seems unperturbed by the challenges ahead. "Americans have always wanted the first ladies to do what they want to do," she says. "In fact, I think we've always benefited in our country from the passions and the interests of our first ladies." Not surprisingly, the new first lady cites Barbara Bush, her mother-in-law, as one of her role models, partly because they share a lifelong interest in promoting reading. Less well-known is Mrs. Bush's admiration for Lady Bird Johnson, a fellow Texan who Mrs. Bush believes was underappreciated. "Lady Bird Johnson was always interested in the environment; she was always interested in nature and the use of native plants," Mrs. Bush says. "The fact is, the Highway Beautification Act and the use of native plants in the landscape was very new when she talked about it."

So far, the public likes what it sees in the new first lady. Recent surveys find that about 60 percent of voters have a generally favorable opinion of her, with the remainder mostly unsure what to make of her so far.

George W. Bush was certainly impressed when he first met her, back in 1977. A free-spirited bachelor in Houston, he was seeing other women when he first encountered the young school librarian. "He was dating other ladies, but it was different when Laura came along," recalls Commerce Secretary Don Evans. "This was serious, and he was immediately focused on her." Mrs. Bush recalls her first impression of her husband-to-be in simple terms: He was "cute" and "very funny." The two married, after a three-month courtship, on Nov. 5, 1977.

Bush Inc. Laura was welcomed immediately into the Bush family, which embraced her precisely because of her lack of affectation. "She is, in the true sense of the old-fashioned word, a lady," says Penne Korth, a Washington socialite and family friend.

That image was very much on display last week as Mrs. Bush sat in a yellow wingback chair in the Diplomatic Room to chat with a reporter. A photographer prepared to snap a few pictures, and an aide fussed over strands of auburn hair that had fallen across her forehead; a few moments later, the strands reappeared. Mrs. Bush ignored them.

She brightened when the conversation shifted to her marriage. "I'm quieter, and he's more gregarious," Mrs. Bush said. "But we actually have very complementary personalities. I think that's one reason we are happily married, because we like to do the same things. We both like to go to bed early. We like to get up early. We like to laugh."

"I think his jokes are the funniest," the first lady added. "I'll always keep laughing at his jokes." After nearly 24 years of marriage, and with their most challenging times ahead, that's a very good sign.

With Angie Cannon