Rooting for Miss California

This will be a post that is destined to make just about nobody happy, so only the Almighty knows why I feel compelled to write it...but forthwith...

I will be written off by some as hopelessly outdated for asking what possible long-term good for the nation comes out of beauty pageants? To me, they send all the wrong messages, namely that physical beauty of a very narrow type is something that should be rewarded...why? Just because it exists? By definition, then, any woman is lacking whose measurements are less (or, I guess, more) than what is deemed the ideal by the fashion community at large that sponsors the pageants.

What is the point of a beauty pageant beyond a group of stunningly gorgeous specimens of the female sex baring 95% of their bodies and strutting on a stage for the judges to admire? I probably don't sound serious, but I actually am. I should hastily add that I can think fairly rapidly of a number of former beauty pageant queens who have gone on to do very well for themselves and whom I admire (but my opinion is still the same!) Gretchen Carlson on Fox & Friends is one; Sarah Palin is another. But even Sarah Palin, who participated, if my memory serves, in some sort of high school pageant looked back on it all in a humorous, yet rueful fashion in a TV interview that aired during the campaign last year. (I vividly remember it still because she smilingly talked about the nerve they had to "show off our butts" to the judges...and I wondered if this was the first time this portion of the anatomy had been discussed on TV by so high-profile of a politician...let alone a female VP candidate?)

Call me a prude if you will, and I obviously don't think I am, but I just can't see where the benefit and uplift comes from a beauty pageant. It all strikes me as plastic and contrived and I've already detailed the signals I think are not so subtly sent, but I'll happily listen to anyone who wants to inform me how misguided I am...especially because now I'm probably going to hear from all the female friends I have who have participated, still unbeknownst to me, in beauty pageants at some point in the distant past!

Now, having alienated half of my vast readership, I'll proceed to tick off the rest: Miss California (Carrie Prejean) is to be commended for speaking the truth fearlessly and forthrightly, after she took the question on gay marriage from the sanctimonious little perverted twit that fancies himself a journalist and serious commentator. And it amazes and infuriates me that the Left refuses to be satisfied until they have not only guillotined her, but drawn and quartered her for good measure. This poor kid is only 22 years old and simply answered a question. And suddenly, the fact that she posed semi-nude for some photos at some point in her past is a heinous transgression for which her detractors are demanding our collective horror, complete with slacked jaws and rapid palpitations?

The hypocrisy and faux outrage of it all is enough to make one clench.

Juan Williams is right. No conservative, he nonetheless is an honest and fair journalist who tries to tell the truth as he sees it...and has been viciously attacked by liberals as a result. He spoke out about it on the O'Reilly Factor a few weeks ago, declaring that, yes, the Right has its extremists, but their ire is miniscule compared to the venom unleashed when one deviates from the orthodoxy of the Daily Kos/Democrat Left.