This is funny:
Already, as a NOM commercial on the Prejean incident was released, a story about her implants was leaked. And, of course, that was only the beginning of the character assassination to come.
The quote is from a column by Seth Leibsohn and Kathryn Lopez at National Review (via Sullivan, as usual). NOM is the National Organization for Marriage, which doesn’t want gays getting married. Carrie is Carrie Prejean, a girl who is Miss California (and looks like you’d expect Miss California to look). She told an Internet gossip site that she’s against gay marriage.
The implants … well, apparently she had implants, and nobody needs an explanation as to where. Not even the people at National Review, who spend the rest of their column wading into all the terrible sexual things young people get up to nowadays. I guess this is what strikes me as the funny part. But Leibsohn and Lopez could argue back, if they felt like it, that their point was proved by this little aside. Everyday culture is now so sexualized that “implants” is a standard, commonplace term that everyone recognizes without explanation.
To take on some of the points actually made in the column:
- Leibsohn and Lopez seem to deplore every decision Ms. Prejean has ever made except her decision to be against gays getting married. If she’s so bad at making decisions, are they happy having her agree with them?
- L&L acknowledge that Ms. Prejean signed a release saying she had never posed for seminude photos, even though, well, she had indeed posed for such photos. L&L act as if this provided “some of the most radical opponents of her position on gay marriage” (interesting construction) with an easy pretext to play the hypocrisy card. But I think we can all agree that people should not lie in signed statements. Our legal system certainly thinks so.
- L&L act as if everyone who’s in favor of gay marriage somehow got together to do down Ms. Prejean: “note what the movement of tolerance does when you simply exercise your rights to free speech, taking a position they disagree with. They go personal. They go for the jugular.” But we’re talking about leaked information. By definition, very few people have access to such information. A handful of people decided to reveal Ms. Prejean’s secrets; I bet they didn’t like what she had to say about gay marriage, but a movement they ain’t.
- Finally, there’s a reason people like that phrase about “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The reason is sentences such as the following: “One report last year found that one in four teens has a sexually transmitted disease.” Oh yeah, what report and using what methods? Maybe the American Institute for Keep It in Your Pants held a nationwide contest and church members wrote their best guesses on boxtops. L&L don’t tell us.
Credit where it’s due, L&L are right in saying that Bristol Palin should not be doing publicity work for teen abstinence, especially since 1) she has a child to raise, 2) she still has to get thru high school, and 3) she apparently doesn’t believe in teen abstinence. Her decision to go before the cameras really is absurd. Who could have influenced her? Who around her has shown a persistent combination of reckless judgment and love for publicity? Oh yeah, her fucking mother. Which goes to show two things: parents don’t always know best, and Kathryn Lopez is very bad at picking worthy candidates for high national office. Good thing she knows so much about how teens ought to behave.
UPDATE: I forgot, L&L end their column with a plea for “decency.” Yeah, well, torture.
UPDATE 2: The gossip site TMZ says Ms. Prejean’s parents got divorced and accused each other of gay shit. A reason for Ms. Prejean’s beliefs on gay marriage? Possibly. An occasion for one of the more amusing sentences ever allegedly found in court papers? Oh yes, very much so. Here is the sentence: “The mother also alleges the father told the girls their stepfather was gay, that all men with mustaches are gay.” Tom Selleck assures me that’s just what is called a rule of thumb.