Pop culturalist Naomi Wolf obviously doesn't care much for Teresa Heinz Kerry, which is fine, I suppose, but she doesn't have to be so stupid about it. Here's an excerpt from Wolf's diatribe in New York Magazine ("Female Trouble," September 27):

Let's start with "Heinz." There is no genteel way to put this: Teresa is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of a dead man.

(Predictably, the Princess of Provincetown throws up huzzahs for this particularly nasty tripe. Politics and bedfellows and all that.)

Wolf's crankiness leads me to present, not only for her benefit but for the edification of Republican pundits and voters who are also carrying around this bag of bile (Michelle Malkin, please call your office.), the following question: What do Midge Decter, Frances Lear, and Erica Jong have in common?

Give up?

Decter, Lear, and Jong each retained -- professionally, in the public sphere, if you will -- the surname of a previous husband from whom she was divorced (N.B.: Divorced, not widowed.), even after her subsequent remarriage to another man.

If you want to be the one to call Norman Podhoretz "cuckolded" -- and by a then still-living man at that -- be my guest. I think I'll pass.

[Post-publication addendum (September 30): A reader, J.T. of Kumamoto, Japan, writes (September 26): "You might already know this, but I thought I would pass it on. Though she [Michelle Malkin] has complained in print about Heinz (I assume you are talking about the Howard Dean in a dress column, but I think that she also has specifically complained about the name thing including Hillary [Rodham Clinton] and some other dems) her books are copywritten in her maiden name (Maglalang)."]

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