The topic for this year's dog days seems to be: Just how awful is the future White House spouse?

Vanity Fair has set a new standard for catnip with Judy Bachrach's portrait of aspiring first lady Judith Giuliani. Forget asking who would want to be president. Who in her right mind would ever want to be the first lady?

Or the first gentleman, as the case, indeed, may be. Retract that question.

Bill Clinton can't wait for his Vanity Fair cover -- he'll be wearing an apron and baking cookies, no doubt. But there isn't much left to learn about the former president. We know everything from the cut of his drawers to the angle of his repose. "TMI" (too much information) was coined for the Clinton White House and the Starr Inquisition.

We are equally thorough in our inspection of potential first wives, apparently, though in different ways. Dirty little secrets have less to do with alleged sexual peccadilloes than with more subtle indiscretions of class and taste. We love the working class, just as long as they don't try to use the good silver.

Bachrach's piece cut close to the pedigree. Not only was Mrs. Giuliani portrayed as using husbands to advance her personal socio-economic agenda, but her squarely middle-class upbringing was put on snobbish display. Hint: her parents' porch is carpeted.

Or, as an old friend described her childhood lifestyle: "They ate dinner every night at 5 p.m. Salad was not something they knew much about. Hoagies and potatoes and corn they knew about."

Ah, where would we be without our "old friends"?

In any case, the young Judith's culinary experiences closely parallel those of most Americans, the majority of whom are not as concerned as, say, Barack Obama is with the high cost of arugula.

Speaking recently at a Rural Issues Forum in Adel, Iowa, the Illinois senator expressed solidarity with the state's corn and soybean farmers by noting that crop prices hadn't risen even though grocery store prices had:

"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" the senator asked. "I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff."

Um, that would be a 'no.' For starters, Iowa doesn't have a Whole Foods store. And chances are good that most Iowans are more interested in the cost of, oh, corn and soybeans. Continued...