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Asked to explain more fully her husband's relationship with Jennifer Fitzgerald, a former appointments assistant who now serves as deputy chief of protocol at the State Department, Mrs. Bush described it as "employer- employee." Says Mrs. Bush: "She's a good friend of mine. I mean, it's so ugly, the whole thing. And it's been very deceitful and harmful and ugly. I haven't seen Jennifer, but my heart goes out to her. This is just mean." She said the two had not spoken because Fitzgerald was out of the country.
Mrs. Bush then dropped a bombshell of her own. The decision to have an abortion, she said, is a "personal choice, personal thing." The day before, the President had said he would support a granddaughter who decided to terminate a pregnancy -- although his own party is trying to outlaw the procedure unless the mother's life is endangered. Mrs. Bush went well beyond that, saying all discussion of abortion should be removed from the political arena. "The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, out of platforms at conventions . . . You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you're not going to change each other's minds. It's a waste of your time and my time."
Mrs. Bush had been suspected of harboring pro-choice views for years, but she never before said it publicly to avoid unnecessary skirmishes with the Republican Party's conservative wing. Coming the day after the Fitzgerald boomlet, the pronouncement's timing was curious and set off a round of political speculation. Some thought the abortion comment was an attempt to change the subject from the infidelity flap. Others believed that G.O.P. campaign officials were attempting to have it both ways by having Mrs. Bush woo independent and Republican women who find the party's pro-life platform unrealistic.
Whatever the motivation, Mrs. Bush's remarks put her at odds with Marilyn Quayle. The Vice President's wife last month contradicted her husband's public comments by insisting that if their 13-year-old daughter ever became pregnant out of wedlock, she would "carry the baby to term." Mrs. Bush had little use for this inflexible logic. Said she: "You can't pin a child down and say, 'You can't have an abortion; that's against the law.' " But the First Lady quickly added that any differences between the two women were a measure of the G.O.P.'s diversity. "((Marilyn)) does it differently. That's what's big about our party."
In fact, Mrs. Quayle differs from the President's wife in many ways. While the First Lady's image is cuddly and grandmotherly, Marilyn Quayle can seem hard, intolerant and combative. "I'm a great devil's advocate," she explained in an interview with TIME. "I can pierce holes through anything." Convention organizers will try to turn her tough-as-nails reputation into a political asset. Her midweek address on health care and education will mark the first time a Vice President's wife has ever given an actual convention speech. "The idea," said a planner, "is to show women voters that you can be a Republican and not just wear Talbots and pearls and join the Junior League."