It's almost as if the mainstream media wants everybody to read my article on the Man-Crush Primary. Maureen Dowd's most recent piece in the New York Times is all fluff about John Edwards with this ending:
Recalling his first date with Elizabeth, in law school, he says: "I was such a classy guy, I took her to the Holiday Inn to dance. It was loud. Elizabeth made fun of me for weeks for taking her there. Elizabeth thinks the two rules you always use in politics are: Don't dance. And don't wear hats."
Especially not if you've got such a fabulous haircut to show off.
That haircut has been the big news, again.
But if you read the conservative press and blogs another topic gets even more mention than Edward's haircut, though only by a slight margin. It is the question whether the mainstream media wants a Democratic president because an article in the New York Times wondered if America is ready for a president with a trophy wife. This refers to Fred Thompson and his much younger wife. The National Ledger writes:
Of course. The media is in a bit of a tight spot here. If it is okay to attack a candidate's wife (or non-candidate) for her looks do we now get to blast away at Hillary's looks? Or trash Obama's wife?
Errr. Michelle Obama has certainly been trashed in the press already, and Hillary Clinton's looks have been reviewed many, many times.
The game that is being played here is the pretense that only the other side does whatever you are aghast about. I did quite a lot of research for my Man-Crush Primary article to make sure that I wasn't playing that game, and if the trophy wife piece had appeared earlier I would have included it. Right now, though, the game looks heavily weighted to benefit the Republicans. But it doesn't look that way to Hugh Hewitt:
It is an astonishing attack, really, one that tells us --again-- that no line of attack on the GOP big three will be left unexplored by the MSM desperate to get a Democrat back into the White House.
Says he, in regard to the trophy wife piece. I wonder if he read my piece about how much praise the GOP big three have been getting from the very same press he accuses? How would he explain that praise? Or the attention recently given to, say, Al Gore's family members? Is it that even one negative mention of Republicans in the press is enough to prove his point?
Given all that, I don't like the trophy wife piece. Family members of politicians are individuals on their own right and should not be treated as if they are owned by the politician they are related to.