Lloyd Grove in the Washington Post:
Guests at Mark and Ali Russell's annual St. Patrick's Day house party were charmed Sunday by 79-year-old Lenora Tomalin, a feisty supporter of President Bush and his take-no-prisoners stance toward Iraq's Saddam Hussein.Ruh Oh!
But they were shocked when Tomalin identified herself -- to the likes of Tim Russert and Maureen Orth, Chris and Kathleen Matthews, and Joe diGenovan and Victoria Toensing -- as the mother of Susan Sarandon.
"I am a conservative. I voted for George W. Bush and I simply agree with most everything he has said," Tomalin told us yesterday from the Northern Virginia home of keyboardist John Carroll, her son-in-law, and daughter Meredith Carroll, one of Sarandon's eight siblings. "It's not that I'm pro-war. It's just that I think that I trust my government more than I would empathize with the government of Iraq."Free Jack Henry!
Of Sarandon's anti-Bush activism, Tomalin said: "That's a given. That's the way she thinks. That's what Hollywood thinks. We don't agree, but I respect her -- more than she does me." But surely, we suggested, Tomalin's 56-year-old eldest child respects her mother's opinions. "Wanna bet?"
...
"When I visit Susan, I tread on eggs," Tomalin said. "The most difficult time was during the election of 2000. I live in Florida, and I was a Republican poll-watcher in Polk County. Afterward, I was sitting at the breakfast table with Jack Henry, my then-13-year-old grandson, and he looked over at me, with the sweetest little smile on his face, and said, 'I hear you voted for Bush.' I looked up at Susan, who's standing at the sink, and she says, 'All he wants to know is: How could you have voted for Bush?' And I thought, 'I'm not going to discuss my politics with a 13-year-old who has been brainwashed!'
I should think so! But it's a good thing she won't see the men's room.
Tomalin -- a fan of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Vice President Cheney -- added that she was bitterly disappointed last Christmas when she was visiting Washington and unable to arrange a tour of the White House decorations. "I tried everybody, and nothing could be done for me," she said. "I'll go to my grave angry about that."
But she's planning a return trip in May, and somehow we think that the somebody at the White House -- Karl Rove, are you reading this? -- will find a way to make an old lady happy.
