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You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Prejean decade begins

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152Comments

  3. 3.

    Roger Moore

    Obviously, they’re courting the votes of ignorant, abrasive people. Sadly, it looks as though there are enough of them to make their votes worth courting.

  4. 4.

    General Winfield Stuck

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    She’ll never be another Sarah Palin.

  5. 5.

    Demo Woman

    We could all be the next Prejean or Joe. All we have to do is be mocked by Kos and we too will have our 15 minutes of fame. How much money can one make for 15 minutes of fame?

  7. 7.

    jl

    Prejean is better looking than Joe The Plumber, and seems much smarter, from what I have heard from them both so far. That goes for Pawlenty too. So, its a small step forward.

    Her exit from whatever beauty-queeny thing she was signals a Palin/Gingrich level of callous opportunism and ambition, so she could be dangerous, which is the main drawback.

    I think she was kicked out of beauty queendom ’cause she couldn’t be bothered with appearances for vulger small businesses, community groups and charities that did not fall under the ambit of big money career advancement. That right?

  8. 8.

    jl

    Mean that Prejean seems smarter and better looking than Pawlenty. Didn’t meant that Pawlenty was smarter or better looking than JTP, which would be an absurd statement.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    Old lecherous men plus lots and lots of money. I mean, you can stack up the Republican women tits up to the moon and they’d pay out just to look. NO ONE at that dinner is going to care about one word that comes out of her mouth. But they’ll be writing checks if she wears a low-cut gown and winks profusely.

  10. 10.

    Keith G

    Great. Another overly thin, blonde white woman to rally the wingularity. Pre internet she would have barely gotten Warhol’s 15. Now tho, I think we are stuck with her for a while.

    BTW: thats one hello of a turn up at the end of her nose or is it just a bad camera angle?

  11. 11.

    gizmo

    Since Obama won last November, the GOP has been in Mardi Gras mode. They have been relieved of all responsibility for governing, and are now liberated to reveal their inner wacko and just go for it. I’ve never seen them so happy.

  13. 13.

    tripletee

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    Starbursts, bitches!

    The GOP looked at Obama, and particularly his margins in the 18-24 demo, and concluded that they could solve their problems by repackaging their ideas as “young” and “cool” (you know, like these guys). Failing that, they figured a great rack wouldn’t hurt.

  14. 14.

    amorphous

    @Keith G: What if Carrie Prejean ever went missing. Would it be possible for Fox News to squeeze in 37 hours of “missing white woman” programming in every 24-hour news day?

    I think they’d find a way.

  15. 15.

    jl

    Collins and Snow have cankles, therefore they have no policy cred or wisdom needed for such a distinguished occasion.

    So, I’m with Yusano, lecherous old dudes with money run the GOP, and they will go for that, and Prejean might attract Fox coverage (watch Fox hostesses for nascent signs of threat detection, though).

  16. 16.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Is it me or is Prejean Anne Coulter minus 1.5 decades and an Adam’s apple?

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    Lonely fReichtards will flock to events, on the off chance her shirt will magically disappear.

    This is great. I look forward to seeing where they’ll go once Prejean doesn’t work out. Maybe a 4-year old who shouts “Nobama is a doody head!” all of the time.

  19. 19.

    gbear

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    Ignorant: yep.
    Abrasive: most definitely.
    Beauty pageant winner: A lot of people DO (well, did) like Tim Pawlenty for his boyish good looks.

    That woman’s no great catch either.

  25. 25.

    steve s

    “22
    Aug
    The Prejean decade begins
    by DougJ
    I really don’t understand this. I didn’t understand Joe the Plumber either. What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?”

    It’s really not hard to understand. The GOP has become the party of morons. What’s more appealing to a moron than a really hot moron telling them they’re right? How many ugly broads you see on FoxNews?

    And the JtP thing is easy to understand too. Hard workin’ blue collar white guy uses courage and common sense to stand up to the big city fancy-pants darkie. That’s like wingnut Central Casting.

  26. 26.

    The Dangerman

    Prejean going missing would be 24×7 programming, but having her end up in a “relationship” with a Palin (Todd or Sarah, either one) could cause a real meltdown.

  28. 28.

    Ed Drone

    “Beauty pageant winner?” — didn’t she lose? If I recall, she came in second runner-up or something, and blamed her loss on the dopey “alikes” speech she gave about gay marriage, claiming that it was her opposition that torpedoed her chances, when it was the fact that she barely got two sensible words in a row in a part of the contest that depends on thinking on one’s feet.

    And to think the pageant paid for her tits, too. I’d say someone other than Carrie doesn’t really have both oars in the water. Of course, she doesn’t either, but a pageant that has to pay to alter what God gave her in a contest about God-given bodies, well, that just doesn’t make much sense.

    After all, a beauty pageant is so sensible a way to choose our “idols.”

    Ed

  30. 30.

    Chad N Freude

    No doubt I will be pelted with rotted vegetables for saying this, but I think she got a bum rap at the beginning. A beauty queen (not referring to Perez Hilton here) has an opinion about a social issue with which we disagree: OMG the sky is falling! She’s entitled to her opinion, just as we are to express ours and to disregard hers. For all I know, she’s a thoughtful, serious person. OK, a little overboard there.

    Now for the Balloon-Juice correct part: If she had the sense to be publicly apolitical, and had not allowed herself to be used as a political pawn, she would not be deserving of our scorn. But she doesn’t, she didn’t, so she does.

    And to answer DougJ’s question, celebrity, not substance, helps your party.

  31. 31.

    Mike G

    GW Bush – the candidate for Repigs who found GHW Bush too intellectual.
    Sarah Palin – the candidate for Repigs who found GW Bush too intellectual.
    Carrie Prejean – the candidate for Repigs who find Sarah Palin too intellectual.

    Prejean/Joe the Plumber 2012! Live the dream!

  34. 34.

    Keith G

    @Chad N Freude:No veggies, but it was not that she had an opinion, but how it was expressed and anchored. So clueless. Even opinions that I disagree with can be spoken in a way deserving respect.

  36. 36.

    Sentient Puddle

    @Chad N Freude: Well, I did kind of feel sorry for her, but not so much for that reason. It was more the right wing that jumped on this story, crying gay fascism because Perez Hilton didn’t like her answer, and that whining is what started the whole stink. So in the beginning, she was a pawn.

    Of course, when she went into full-on victim mode (which, by the way, was a total 180 from where she started, when she said that she was hearing nothing but support from the peanut gallery), then yeah, we could safely say “fuck her.”

  37. 37.

    jl

    @Chad N Freude: She was Miss California USA, per Wikipedia.

    Her termination of Miss California Queenanity might be more complicated than I thought.

    From Wikipeida:
    “Prejean has stated that K2 Productions wanted her to pose for Playboy and appear on the reality television show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here!, though Keith Lewis, the executive director of K2 Productions, stated that Prejean had requested to be notified of all offers for appearances”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Prejean

    So, Prejean claims that the pageant wanted her to sleaze it up as part of her job.

    But I read she was fired because she would only do big media events, and flatly refused to do the small time community welfare schtick.

    I also read she has a troubled history with her family, which includes some bisexual marriage breakage by per parents. So, I thought she was a troubled and mistaken person.

    I watched a few interviews with her and she seems much nicer than the usual wingnut. Then I read that she basically blew off the Pageant Queen biz because too much of it got in the way of what she wanted to do.

  38. 38.

    steve s

    @Mike G: I’ve often thought about this progression. That’s why I need to register http://www.PalinBibleDonkey.com. Instead of a human running mate, Palin will put a donkey with bibles stapled to it in the Veep spot. “Vote for a sweet donkey instead of an elite jackass” will be the slogan. Fox and drudge will lock a 24 hour webcam onto the donkey’s veterinary birth certificate. In late October, when the ticket’s polling at 40% to Obama’s 60%, they’ll spray paint No Gay Agenda on the side of the donkey, but the spray paint boy will be from WND and he’ll unthinkingly start spraying “No homosexual agenda” and so it’ll run out of space after No homos. Which they’ll decide is just fine. They’ll go down to defeat 70% to 30%, which every republican everywhere will instantly blame on The Media.

  39. 39.

    asiangrrlMN

    @gbear: I was all set to go on my usual screed against T-Paw, but you took the wind out of my sails by making me crack up over your wit. Damn you! He’ll always be Ratface Pawlenty to me.

    @Chad N Freude: I agree with you. I didn’t agree with her answer, but what the fuck? Who cares? It’s a fucking beauty pageant. All the shit she’s spewed since, though, that matters because now she’s using the fracas to make her bones.

    By the way, I don’t get guys–I really don’t. To me, there is nothing even remotely attractive about Prejean. Might as well have a blow-up doll and be done with it.

  42. 42.

    cbear

    What’s not to understand? Pretty women always have an advantage, with at least half the population, regardless of the situation.

    I’ll cop to it–when I see and hear her on the teevee, my big head is saying “Man, this chick is stupid as a box of rocks” but my little head is saying “That’s so interesting honey, could you bend over a little so I can hear you better?” and I’m wondering if I could nail her without any of my liberal friends knowing.

    It’s the biology, stupid.

    The only saving grace here is that most of the male goopers are more interested in the guy sitting next to them and are wondering what he might look like in a wetsuit.

  43. 43.

    amorphous

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Might as well have a blow-up doll and be done with it.

    But don’t you see that’s the exact point of Prejean? Go to foxnews.com and just try to find one moment in one day when they aren’t soft-coring it up.

  45. 45.

    jl

    @asiangrrlMN: From the pictures clips I’ve seen, I do not find her all that attractive, except in a stereotypical Southern California beach bunny type of way.

    But I only said she was better looking and seemed smarter than Pawlenty and JT Plumber, which is not a high bar for any women, or man, or lots of other earthly creatures.

  46. 46.

    Chad N Freude

    @asiangrrlMN:

    By the way, I don’t get guys—I really don’t. To me, there is nothing even remotely attractive about Prejean. Might as well have a blow-up doll and be done with it.

    Vive la différence.

    And I object to blow-up dolls coming into this country and taking jobs away from American citizens.

  47. 47.

    khead

    She does nothing for me either. But it’s because whiners annoy me. When she realized she wasn’t gonna be Miss USA, she settled on Miss Cashing-in-Victim pretty damn fast.

  48. 48.

    jl

    @amorphous: Yes, that is correct. That is what the self-styled alpha male portion crowed wants. So, maybe she should keep her mouth shut, so has not to rattle them or make Mr. Pawlenty appear ridiculous.

  50. 50.

    Chad N Freude

    @jl:

    a stereotypical Southern California beach bunny type of way

    And that’s a bad thing because … ?

  53. 53.

    jl

    @Chad N Freude: Now, now, tut tut and p’shaw, I did not say it was a ‘bad thing’ at all. I lived down there for quite awhile, and, ahem… perhaps grew somewhat jaded in Lotus Land.

  54. 54.

    Chad N Freude

    @jl:

    Well, I’m stuck here in Lotus Land and constantly exposed to those perfect volley ball playing cyberbots. Of many, many genders. They fall into two categories: those I want to have, and those I want to be. (Not necessarily mutually exclusive.)

  55. 55.

    YellowJournalism

    “How many ugly broads you see on FoxNews?”

    Not that Fox is the only station doing this, but I would say they’re the worst offender due to the fact that almost every woman on there anymore looks the same: bleach blonde, shoulder-length hair with a big toothy grin and a vacant expression on her face as if she’s waiting for the little bud in her ear to tell her what she needs to think and say next. Some of the worst offenders of this are O’Reilly’s two “culture warriors” whose opinions seem to be randomly pulled from conservative fortune cookies and tossed out of their mouths with a few smirks and some random blinking.

    I swear, though, that there is one, uh, I guess…reporter on either Fox or CNN that looks EXACTLY like a Malibu Barbie doll, down to the pink make-up and bronzed skin. If I ever see her again, I need to remember her name and station.

    Meanwhile, most of the men on Fox look similar to Sean Hannity. Even CNN is trying to make some of the daytime male anchors seem more GQ mode-ish, but all three cable news networks seem to be putting up pretty over pretty good at their job. Prejean fits right in with them, although I give her credit for being slightly smarter. (And yeah, I do think she was unfairly judged at first, despite what she said. And Perez Hilton is an asshole and a big ol’ crybaby who can dish but cannot take.)

  57. 57.

    Chad N Freude

    @YellowJournalism:

    Re Perez Hilton: He’s not “a big ol’ crybaby who can dish but cannot take”, he’s a self-promoting media whore who can dish and doesn’t care one whit about taking.

  58. 58.

    monkeyboy

    @David:

    It’s the rehearsal for becoming a FoxNews anchor.

    I don’t think she has the minimal abilities to be a TV personality.

    I think she is being auctioned off as a trophy wife and maybe she realizes that her appearances is the best way to maximize the wealth of her buyer.

    Young Goopers fantasize that when they be older and richer that they can buy somebody like her.

  59. 59.

    jl

    @Chad N Freude: I suppose regional stereotypes have some basis in reality, and I knew some stereotypical crowds of Blond Beach Boors and Bunnies. But, not all are that way. Plenty of nice, thoughtful, and smart people down there, some of whom are Blond Beach Bunnies.

  61. 61.

    jerry 101

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    Because Republicans love being the victim and Sarah plays a great victim?

  62. 62.

    Chad N Freude

    @jl:

    OK, you got me, you’re right. Hot and Smart are not mutually exclusive. But separating the hot+smart from the hot+huh? is not always easy.

  63. 63.

    gbear

    Forgive me for saying this, but ‘Prejean’ has the same kind of ring to it as ‘Santorum’. It just sounds like some sort of clean-up will be necessary.

  64. 64.

    latts

    Well, having a highly desirable– and therefore high-value by conservative standards– female validating the opinions of lower-status men is a marketing winner, apparently. It’s not like 95% of the Fox-watching angry white GOP men could ever get a Prejean (or a Coulter, or hell, even a Malkin) to give them the time of day in their everyday lives, after all.

  65. 65.

    jl

    @YellowJournalism: I remember a clip of Hannity (or what it their not-Hannity news star?), slobbering over a bimbo panel, staring that their barely covered boobies, and asking them over and over about the trials, tribulations and advantages of being hot babes. It was surreal, disgusting, and hilarious.

    I think it was part of one of Fox’s soft-porn exposes, which gives them an opportunity to decry the corruption of our youth and show half nekkid babe clips over and over again.

    I was rolling on the floor and laughing (if it is OK to type that). It went like
    “you are so hot and that is great, but do you not feel your hotness is being exploited by forces corroding our society.”

    “well, I dunno if I’m hawwtt…. hee hee”

    “Aw come on, you are HOT, look at your…. !!”

  70. 70.

    asiangrrlMN

    @de stijl: Great. Another winger from my state. STFU, Gretchen!

    @gbear: Rachel Maddow. My god. Brains, beauty, and total geekiness….Want want want!

    …
    ….
    …..

    Annnnd, I’m back.

    @Yutsano: Damn right! I have a very wide range of people I find hot. One commenter once even asked me to name people I don’t find hot. Bottom line is, I don’t do stupid. The fact that your bro agrees shows that it’s not necessarily biological.

  71. 71.

    DaBomb

    I don’t Prejean kinda looks like a spazed out koala bear.

    If you can picture what a spazed out koala bear looks like.

    Uh..yeah.

  72. 72.

    cbear

    @gbear:
    Prejean: that distinctly uncomfortable feeling you have when you have to take a huge dump—and you’re afraid it may have already crowned and is staining your jeans.

  74. 74.

    Chad N Freude

    @DaBomb:

    Unfair. She’s no different from all the other physically attractive women who didn’t meet Donald Trump’s standards of layabilitude.

  75. 75.

    steve s

    “Meanwhile, most of the men on Fox look similar to Sean Hannity. Even CNN is trying to make some of the daytime male anchors seem more GQ mode-ish, but all three cable news networks seem to be putting up pretty over pretty good at their job”

    I read GQ. If you think Sean Hannity has anything to do with GQ or the word ‘pretty’, I’m calling your relatives. Your crack problem has gotten out of control and we have to stage an intervention.

  76. 76.

    Sputnik_Sweetheart

    @jl: Shortly after her termination, Prejean’s email correspondence with Keith Lewis, the Miss California director was leaked to the press. Her emails were incredibly nasty and unprofessional. And before the pageant, the Miss USA website posted a video with her and Miss Hawaii ridiculing another contestant. She really seems like a shallow mean girl. I don’t feel bad for her at all.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525726,00.html

    http://jezebel.com/5220171/miss-california-gossips-about-fellow-pageant-contestant

  78. 78.

    jl

    @Sputnik_Sweetheart: interesting e-mail correspondence. What a sweet heart. School of Newt and Sarah all the way, it looks like. I guess the new report I read was right and the Wikipedia article is doubtful.

    She sure is perdy, and she talks all sweet ‘n nice in front of the camera man, but I guess she is a mean lady. My heart is all done broke up. Boo hooh.

  79. 79.

    jl

    “I guess the newS report I read was right and the Wikipedia article is doubtful.”

    Where is that edit function? I read the report that she flaked in a mean way out of her California Queenitude a few weeks ago, and done got my heart broke that she was mean and all. I looked up the Wikipedia bio just a while ago tonight.

  80. 80.

    gocart mozart

    Duh! She is for “Opposite Marriage”. What married guy can be against that? Have you ever tried normal marriage?

    p.s.
    just kidding honey ;)

  81. 81.

    DanJoaquinOz

    It’s a Daddy’s Girl thing.
    From Palin to Bachmann to Malkin and Prejean, there’s a creepy conservative lietmotif of pageant-purty whack jobs talking tough-Daddy horseshit, that just thrills the starbursting bejesus out of the aging, white, frat lodge that still hogs the GOP and the MSM.
    Having some big-haired, doe-eyed Babydoll parroting her big Daddy’s talking points is like Viagra-fuelled time travel, back to the good old days, when Marilyn cooed that her heart belonged to Da-da-daddy, cuz her Daddy treated her SO well. For the aging, angry, pasty demographic there’s nothing quite like a dumb, pretty gal who does as she’s told to get them old righteous juices flowing again!

  83. 83.

    Fulcanelli

    C’mon guys, it’s obvious Carrie Prejean’s appeal fits the Aryan/Nazi master race female archetype to a frickin’ T. Attractive, blond, fair skin and dumb. Good breeding stock to “take our country back”!

    The GOP base has self distilled down to almost nothing but Nazi like thinking and after some of the shit she’s spouted, no one should be surprised when they scoop her up to display as the archetypal Republican Real American Female(TM).

    Looking out at the audience at her public appearances is going to be like looking out at a wingnut refugee tent city. Heh.

    With Prussian Blue warming up the crowd.

    Implants Uber Alles.

    /and fuck Godwin’s Law. also.

  86. 86.

    Brachiator

    I really don’t understand this. I didn’t understand Joe the Plumber either. What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    This is the secret weapon of the wingnuts, and should not be underestimated.

    There are liberals and progressives who make a fetish of trumpeting their intelligence.

    This is not the same thing as having political power.

    We have a president who is wicked smart. On the other side are people who earnestly believe in basic common sense over book learning and also hold that if you have the correct Real American Christian Values ™, then the baby Jesus will smile on you and make sure that you get everything you want, including victory over the Muslim terrorists, cheap oil and free market health care.

    Prejean is a blandly pretty woman who no one would care about, except that she is defending America against teh gays. Everyone, including wingnuts, dismissed the equally pretty, equally bland, Miss South Carolina because she was just standard stoopid, even though her heart was in the right place, being for education and all.

    It’s interesting to note that some people want to automatically mock Prejean for her evangelical leanings, even though some of her other interests would make Eunice Kennedy Shriver proud (per Wiki):

    Prejean also volunteers with Luv-em-Up Ministries in El Cajon, where she works with children with developmental disabilities. Prejean is studying to become a special education teacher and also volunteers for Best Buddies, a non-profit organization that helps people with disabilities, and for the Special Olympics.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Prejean

    Some of you need to seriously lay off of that holier-than-thou stuff.

    gbear — IMO, Rachel Maddow is the hottest woman in the media.

    You need to get off the crack pipe. Maddow cleans up well, but ain’t the hottest woman in media by any measure. Nor does she need to be. She is a breath of fresh air, and is ferociously intelligent. That’s good enough for me.

  88. 88.

    JK

    @Brachiator:

    As ususal, very well said.

    If you consider Rachel Maddow, ferociously intelligent (an assessment with which I wholeheartedly agree), I recommend you also check out Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org hosted by Amy Goodman, GRITtv http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com hosted by Laura Flanders, and CounterSpin http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=5 hosted by Janine Jackson, Steve Rendall & Peter Hart. They’re all doing work equally as valuable as Maddow, but lack the backing of a major news organization. As a result, their efforts go largely unnoticed.

  89. 89.

    Ailuridae

    @jl:

    Its impossible to say that only happened once but Steve Doocy (who doesn’t look like Hannity) and Brian Kilmeade (who does to a degree) had a nearly identical interaction with the lingerie football models around the time of the SuperBowl.

  90. 90.

    steve s

    @Fulcanelli:

    “With Prussian Blue warming up the crowd.”

    If those poor Prussian Blue girls ever go Menendez on their parents, and I’m on the jury, I’ll refuse to vote Murder I and will only accept manslaugher or temporary insanity.

  93. 93.

    Yutsano

    @amorphous: I’ve heard wingnuts say they love Sarah Palin mostly because she drives the left nuts. I tend to agree, but it’s nowhere near close as to the actual why.

  94. 94.

    ruemara

    Have you heard the term, “freak flag fly”? What you are witnessing here is an orgy of brawndo quaffing, sense abandoning, partisan purity that hasn’t had a way to release itself since the first 400 years of the christian church. They aren’t just flying a freak flag, they are waving fanny’s castle of freak and flag emporium at the whole wide world. And, best of all, they think they’re in the majority.

  96. 96.

    Comrade Luke

    There were supposed to be a bunch of exclamation marks there.

    My kingdom for an edit button…

  97. 97.

    Anne Laurie

    @The Dangerman:

    Prejean going missing would be 24×7 programming, but having her end up in a “relationship” with a Palin (Todd or Sarah, either one) could cause a real meltdown.

    @AhabTRuler:

    What about Tread TrudgeTrack?

    Levi Johnston. He’s the same kind of cute, and now he’s available! You would see Russia hear the screams from Wasilla all the way to DC.

    @gbear:

    Forgive me for saying this, but ‘Prejean’ has the same kind of ring to it as ‘Santorum’. It just sounds like some sort of clean-up will be necessary.

    Hand to goddess, I always thought it sounded like why teenage boys carry their books low after watching the cheerleaders practice. AKA, why teenage boys start doing their own laundry…

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @Yutsano:

    I’ve heard wingnuts say they love Sarah Palin mostly because she drives the left nuts. I tend to agree, but it’s nowhere near close as to the actual why.

    America is a strange place. We celebrate achievement and the idea of a meritocracy over a rigid class system.

    At the same time, we distrust intellectuals, dismissing them as nerds, geeks or eggheads.

    I know people who backed George Bush because they sincerely believed that after he was born again, God would not let him make a mistake.

    With Palin, I hear, “I like her. It’s time that someone who was an ordinary American became president. She has common sense. That’s all she needs as long as she has good advisors.”

  99. 99.

    jl

    @Ailuridae: nope, this beautiful and barely draped babe round table was a serious news piece. It was either Hannity or Cavuto (now I remember, the Bobsy twins of serious Fox commentary).

  101. 101.

    Blue Raven

    @Yutsano:

    Rachel Maddow and Alan Rickman. In your bedroom. At the ssame time.

    I’m not who this was aimed at, but in my world, that’s cause to find out if they’re OK with a threesome.

  102. 102.

    Cassidy

    @asiangrrlMN: You don’t get guys, because you’re looking for a complicated answer. Very simply, guys will do anything that moves. Standards, at a minimum, are: breathing, not illegal, female….breathing. You’re thinking of terms of who to take home to mom and dad. we think in terms of who can I get into bed before 2 AM.

  103. 103.

    JGabriel

    @Cassidy:

    You’re thinking of terms of who to take home to mom and dad. we think in terms of who can I get into bed before 2 AM.

    Ah, yes … I remember what it was like to be fifteen.

    Or: Girls are like this and boys are like that; it’s funny ‘cuz it’s truuuue!

    Sorry, Cassidy, but some of us guys do grow up and develop … scruples, standards. And some of us just like the smart chicks and won’t settle for less.

    .

  104. 104.

    JGabriel

    asiangrrlMN:

    By the way, I don’t get guys—I really don’t. To me, there is nothing even remotely attractive about Prejean.

    I don’t think that’s a matter of not getting guys. It’s more a function of not getting Conservatives.

    .

  105. 105.

    WereBear

    @Brachiator: Because since they’ve been saved, it worked that way for them!

    I know people who backed George Bush because they sincerely believed that after he was born again, God would not let him make a mistake.

    We’re seeing Mencken’s Nightmare: the deification of the Common People.

    The more “common” the better.

  106. 106.

    majkia

    Oh, come on. John McCain’s ugly puss or some ditzy blonde’s. Which face do you choose to look at?

  107. 107.

    Xenos

    Prejean may be pretty, but she is definitely not cute. Cute wins every time. Only insecure people choose pretty.

  108. 108.

    Ash Can

    Considering the fact that today’s GOP is all about appearance as opposed to substance, Prejean’s presence in the forefront of the party is pretty much a given.

  109. 109.

    vacuumslayer

    Forgive me for starting my comment this way, in the most pretentious way imaginable but here goes… As an artist, I’m kinda freaked out by how effed up our standards of beauty are these days. It seems to me we’ll praise anything that’s bleached, skinny and has a fake rack. Prejean is a rather pedestrian-looking woman. I think she’s a tad “post-op transsexual.” I find her looks loud, common and toothy. On no planet is that woman a great beauty. And she is loaded up to gills in artifice. Fake tan, fake hair, fake lips (yup, she’s had them done), fake breasts…blech. I have no problem with men letting their dicks be their guides when it comes to real, honest-to-gosh beauty, but, yeesh, some dicks need to learn some better taste.

    Oh, and same goes for Sarah Palin. While her looks appear to me mostly nature-given, she is at BEST cute.

    Sorry for this very shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow post.

  111. 111.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Sorry for this very shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow post.

    That’s Ok. None of us can swim and are mostly off the deep end.”)

  112. 112.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    The only saving grace here is that most of the male goopers are more interested in the guy sitting next to them and are wondering what he might look like in a two wetsuits with a dildo up his ass.

    Fix’t.

    Prejean is about as deep as a mud puddle, another plastic blonde bimbo in a country full of plastic blonde bimbos.

  113. 113.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JGabriel: But even liberal guys say they will do Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, et. al.

    Even when I am just taking home someone for the night, I want intelligence. The most beautiful guy I ever did–er, knew, was thisclose not to getting laid because he started acting stupid. Fortunately he wised up (pun half-intended) and stopped with teh stupid.

    It’s for that reason that I find Rachel Maddow so freaking hot. She is intelligent, funny, quirky, AND self-deprecating.

    @Yutsano: Alan Rickman AND Rachel Maddow in the same bedroom? Pass the chocolate syrup and get the hell out of my way!

  115. 115.

    asiangrrlMN

    @vacuumslayer: That’s not shallow at all because you are dismantling the notion that thin, bleached blond with empty eyes, bleached teeth, and fake boobs is THE gold standard for teh hawtness. Carry on!

  116. 116.

    geg6

    OT but two things have made my morning. First, Wilco on CBS Sunday Morning! Woot! And second was reading Aimai’s post about her encounter with Joke Line at a picnic on No More Mister Nice Blog. Sorry I can’t post the link from the BlackBerry, but it’s fucking awesome stuff. If you want a link, there is one at Digby’s place. Seriously, read it. I was ROFLMAO when Klein started screaming about how Glenzilla is the EEEVIL because he made Joe’s editor cry.

  117. 117.

    JK

    The GOP’s love affair with Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean puts an exclamation point on their pathological sexism. By promoting these pinup women, the Republicans are appealing to men’s sexual urges rather than to their brains.

    Beauty pageants are as demeaning and degrading to women as minstel shows were to African Americans. Pageants are nothing but meat markets where contestants are objectified and treated as prime cuts instead of 3 dimensional human beings.

    The exploitation of Prejean by Republicans is despicable. These goddamn beauty pageants need to be thrown into the trash receptacle of history just like minstrel shows.

  119. 119.

    vacuumslayer

    @asiangrrlMN: Ah, then I will!

    May I just say that I consider Nigella Lawson the height of hawtness. She’s stunning, voluptuous and loves food. If anyone could get me to bat for the other team it’d be her.

    Also, I found Robin Wright Penn in “The Princess Bride” to be a pinnacle in movie beauty moments. She was just breathtaking.

    Also, I think Michelle Pfieffer one of the most beautiful women in the world.

    I could also compile a list a mile long of classic movie stars, but I’ll just leave it as JOAN FONTAINE.

    THAT is beauty my friends!

  123. 123.

    Cerberus

    Most lesbians and bi girls I know find Rachel Maddow the hottest person in news. She’s got lesbian chic down pat.

    I think the disconnect on hotness standards often comes from what you’re looking for (not necessarily long term, but for one night or for wank fodder). Some guys can be satisfied with someone to essentially masturbate with or on because one can always take oneself mostly in hand and focus on the physical features that most remind you of other wanks. Whereas most women need a certain level of sensitivity just so it doesn’t suck and thus will sometimes be turned off by worrisome warning signs even if the body turns all the right cranks.

    Of course, it’s all moot since what turns on people always varies wildly and most fantasies have little to do with actual people as the expertise or actions or personality are ascribed to the physical beauty in a wank session with little regard to the person’s actual style usually.

  124. 124.

    Cassidy

    @JGabriel: blah, blah, blah….Save the canned speech for real life women who might fall for the shtick. Any dude who isn’t willing to admit they’ll rut with anything is lying through their teeth. Fortunately, I’ve been married for 10 years, so I don’t have that problem anymore.

    @vacuumslayer: You just gotta remember that “Beautiful” and “Doable” are two completely different standards. He/she don’t have to be hot to get in the sack.

  125. 125.

    asiangrrlMN

    @vacuumslayer:

    My list of stunning women: Michelle Obama; Helen Mirren; Susan Sarandon; Michelle Yeoh; Lucy Lawless; Jacqueline Kim; Rachel!!!!! That is a brief list, of course.

    I also think Sonia Sotomayor is an attractive woman because of her vibrancy and her voice.

    Pure eye candy: Maggie Cheung; Kate Winslet; Serena Williams; Cate Blanchett; April Flores; Dita von Teese; Toccara Jones.

  126. 126.

    shortstop

    Beauty pageants are as demeaning and degrading to women as minstel shows were to African Americans. Pageants are nothing but meat markets where contestants are objectified and treated as prime cuts instead of 3 dimensional human beings.

    Feh. In my 20s I said stuff like this. Now I shrug and realize it’s a big, busy world out there, sexuality is complicated, and while I may not like some other women’s choices, not everything that some other woman does reflects on me.

    The real question is why the GOP thinks that beauty pageants are acceptable, much less preferable, sources for serious political discourse, and why they refuse to elevate their non-beauty queen female members to levels of real power in any but a few token instances.

  127. 127.

    drillfork

    I get a little uncomfortable when men talk about the attractiveness of “public” women. (Of course when women discuss the attractiveness of various women, it’s teh hawt!) But in general, I just don’t want to know who’d you’d do, and I assume the world feels the same about me in that regard.

    That said, I can’t let this thread go by without saying: Lara Logan Lara Logan Lara Logan Lara Logan Lara Logan. Talent, balls and hotness. I’m sorry she got knocked up and disappeared.

    Speaking of disappeared, that Time link to the Pawlenty/Prejean story seems to be broken…

  129. 129.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    “What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?”

    If no one has said this already, one reason they do it is because they think it makes us mad.

  130. 130.

    Nutella

    My favorite thing about the Prejean story is that she says her opposition to gay marriage is because it is unnatural and against god’s plan. But god planned for her to be brunette with teeth, lips, and breasts of average size and she rejected those plans to achieve the unnatural looks required of a pageant contestant.

    She’ll go far with the wingnuts. She can say war is peace, freedom is slavery, health care is death panels, nature is unnatural, and sound earnestly sincere while doing so.

  134. 134.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    “most women need a certain level of sensitivity just so it doesn’t suck and thus will sometimes be turned off by worrisome warning signs even if the body turns all the right cranks”

    Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

  136. 136.

    Corner Stone

    @YellowJournalism:

    Not that Fox is the only station doing this, but I would say they’re the worst offender

    Ever try watching CNBC? Turn the sound off first so you don’t hear teh craziness, but then take a gander at the parade of, for the lack of a better descriptive term, “pornstars” they have selling their pro-coporate agenda.
    Not that young, slender, attractive women can not be intellectual but…

  139. 139.

    Corner Stone

    @Xenos:

    Only insecure people choose pretty.

    But wouldn’t the definition of “secure” allow some one to be attracted to the best looking person in the room, and not worry about the challenges or consequences?

  140. 140.

    de stijl

    Your dick went to a university? I’m jealous. My vagina only made it to community college.

    My taint was home-schooled.

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    @JK:

    The GOP’s love affair with Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean puts an exclamation point on their pathological sexism. By promoting these pinup women, the Republicans are appealing to men’s sexual urges rather than to their brains.

    It’s more complex than that. Palin and Prejean espouse proper GOP values, at the most basic, primitive level.

    Beauty pageants are as demeaning and degrading to women

    Pageants have really started to fade. I don’t even know if the “Miss America” pageant is even on TV any more.

    On the other hand, the devaluation of women for entertainment purposes has amped up to a level that seemingly cannot be stopped. Britney Spears has a meltdown, loses custody of her children and has a conservator appointed for her financial affairs, and the only thing that the public cares about is whether she still looks hot and when will her next album be released.

    The actress Mischa Barton is temporarily held for mental observation, and the only thing the public wants to know is if she is still hot, has lost wait, and when will her new TV series be broadcast.

    And it’s not just pretty women. The British game show contestant Susan Boyle is clearly unable to deal with the pressure and publicity that surround her public appearances, and yet the producers of the show she appeared on insist on pushing her into a singing tour. And in idiot America, her life is supposed to get better once she has had a fashion makeover done.

    And of course, all this stupidity is stamped for our approval and pushed out on the infinitely shallow broadcast infotainment shows, which can even package the decline and even deaths of celebrities as spectacle.

  145. 145.

    HyperIon

    my question: which is achieved first, universal health care or edit capability at Balloon Juice?

  146. 146.

    kay

    I think Prejean may be a quitter, like Palin.

    I think they’re betting on the wrong horses with those two prima donnas. NOT real committed to hard work they don’t particularly feel like doing and fulfilling the terms of a contract, whether it’s written or implied.
    You have to wonder about a movement that makes failure at a previous job a prerequisite for hiring.

  147. 147.

    Paul L.

    What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?

    It reminds people of the true ugly stupid petty spokesperson for Gay Marriage Perez Hilton.

  149. 149.

    amorphous

    @Paul L.: Yes, I am sure the Conservative base is highly tuned into the musings of a man who draws penises on celebrity pictures in MSPaint.

  150. 150.

    YellowJournalism

    @Paul L.: Perez Hilton speaks for Perez Hilton, not Gay Marriage or Gay Rights. He may say he supports them, but he is not an official spokesperson in the eyes of most people in the gay and lesbian community. This is a man who draws genitals on the faces of celebs he doesn’t like as he reports their every move and makes money off of them. The man is an opportunist, not unlike many people who are celebrities because they are celebrities. I think he was an ass to Prejean and commend her for giving her answer to Perez’s question truthfully (despite heavily disagreeing with it), but that doesn’t excuse anything that she’s said or done afterward, including shirking her duties as Miss California and runner-up and sending out those nasty, pampered-princess e-mails.

  152. 152.

    Sad_Dem

    So the lecherous old moneybags of the GOP are straight now? Whatever. Wake me up when the video of the Luv-em-Up Ministries weekend at Erik Prince’s mountain cabin gets leaked.

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