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After a trip abroad, I cleared customs and found an airport newsstand. Hillary Clinton was on the cover of Fortune. John Edwards looked out from Men's Vogue.
I was reminded to reset my watch but also to check my calendar.
There was a time when only women in politics were objectified. They made the cover of fashion magazines for their beauty, not their brains.
Pretty blondes in state houses and even the Capitol were mistaken for secretaries, not senators.
So when Fortune plants the subliminal seed of a woman as our nation's next CEO, then pinch me, I must be dreaming. It was a revelation, a good one.
Not sure what to make of the Edwards sighting. I'm not alone in being a person who supports gender equity and who is torn. What's good for equality of the sexes may not be so good for the Edwards camp.
Our nation is at war, and some of our citizens are still unsure about these man dates, metrosexuals and sensitive guys who cry at movies. When it comes to presidents, we want them on the cover of Field & Stream or even Wired. It's Men's Vogue, but it's still Vogue.
I wish we were mature about these things. But having lost the medical vote to his litigation legacy, John Edwards now risks losing the NASCAR vote. Southern candidates, especially Democrats, really do need Budweiser dads and their Mountain Dew offspring.
Poor Edwards. He'll be lucky to get the Axe deodorant vote at this point.
Not fair, I know.
Ronald Reagan was a perpetual groomer who probably gave the mirror a lasting glance before heading out to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. Just a guess, because he was an actor and wore makeup, too.
But Republican Fred Thompson is this year's actor-candidate, not Edwards. But it is Edwards whose good looks keep the cameras flashing.
He is to professional politics what David Beckham is to professional soccer. But where Becks and Victoria ooze sexuality in their recent W spread, Edwards in Vogue just oozes. These people spend their lives just getting people to look at them. Edwards has spent his getting people to listen to him. What happened?
As first lady, Hillary was pilloried for a costly haircut on the tarmac. The media made it seem that for the price of that coif, you could have fed 200 Calcutta orphans and given machine operators a better pension.
Time was when Hillary apologized, it was for not making cookies. Notice that she no longer apologies, not even for her vote authorizing funding for the war in Iraq.
Well, you've come a long way, Hillary, baby! Not nearly far enough, according to a Washington Post report on Hillary's cleavage. According to the Post, the Democrats' Iron Maiden is also a bit of a tease. Oh, please!
Poor John! Gender and regional politics work against him. A southern boy can roll up his sleeves to help rebuild the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, but he ought not know whether those sleeves belong to Dior or Armani. He'd better not spend more time in the mirror than Elvis. It ain't fair, but it is what it is.
I like the guy. I like his wife. He's a wealthy man who works to pull people out of poverty. But Edwards can't escape the metrosexual loop. Despite making sense, he is being objectified like the "girl" politicians of yesteryear. What's the guy to do, get a scar from a barroom brawl in a Fort Worth honky-tonk?
Meanwhile Hillary is being Thatcherized. Fortune readers are debating whether they are bullish or bearish on Hillary.
Edwards bumped up in polling after Iowa. But if all he has to show for it are cheesecake posters of him in desperate housewives' homes, then he'll never make it to the Oval Office.
People should be talking less about his designer duds and more about his designs for pulling us out of Iraq.
Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
I was reminded to reset my watch but also to check my calendar.
There was a time when only women in politics were objectified. They made the cover of fashion magazines for their beauty, not their brains.
Pretty blondes in state houses and even the Capitol were mistaken for secretaries, not senators.
So when Fortune plants the subliminal seed of a woman as our nation's next CEO, then pinch me, I must be dreaming. It was a revelation, a good one.
Not sure what to make of the Edwards sighting. I'm not alone in being a person who supports gender equity and who is torn. What's good for equality of the sexes may not be so good for the Edwards camp.
Our nation is at war, and some of our citizens are still unsure about these man dates, metrosexuals and sensitive guys who cry at movies. When it comes to presidents, we want them on the cover of Field & Stream or even Wired. It's Men's Vogue, but it's still Vogue.
I wish we were mature about these things. But having lost the medical vote to his litigation legacy, John Edwards now risks losing the NASCAR vote. Southern candidates, especially Democrats, really do need Budweiser dads and their Mountain Dew offspring.
Poor Edwards. He'll be lucky to get the Axe deodorant vote at this point.
Not fair, I know.
Ronald Reagan was a perpetual groomer who probably gave the mirror a lasting glance before heading out to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. Just a guess, because he was an actor and wore makeup, too.
But Republican Fred Thompson is this year's actor-candidate, not Edwards. But it is Edwards whose good looks keep the cameras flashing.
He is to professional politics what David Beckham is to professional soccer. But where Becks and Victoria ooze sexuality in their recent W spread, Edwards in Vogue just oozes. These people spend their lives just getting people to look at them. Edwards has spent his getting people to listen to him. What happened?
As first lady, Hillary was pilloried for a costly haircut on the tarmac. The media made it seem that for the price of that coif, you could have fed 200 Calcutta orphans and given machine operators a better pension.
Time was when Hillary apologized, it was for not making cookies. Notice that she no longer apologies, not even for her vote authorizing funding for the war in Iraq.
Well, you've come a long way, Hillary, baby! Not nearly far enough, according to a Washington Post report on Hillary's cleavage. According to the Post, the Democrats' Iron Maiden is also a bit of a tease. Oh, please!
Poor John! Gender and regional politics work against him. A southern boy can roll up his sleeves to help rebuild the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, but he ought not know whether those sleeves belong to Dior or Armani. He'd better not spend more time in the mirror than Elvis. It ain't fair, but it is what it is.
I like the guy. I like his wife. He's a wealthy man who works to pull people out of poverty. But Edwards can't escape the metrosexual loop. Despite making sense, he is being objectified like the "girl" politicians of yesteryear. What's the guy to do, get a scar from a barroom brawl in a Fort Worth honky-tonk?
Meanwhile Hillary is being Thatcherized. Fortune readers are debating whether they are bullish or bearish on Hillary.
Edwards bumped up in polling after Iowa. But if all he has to show for it are cheesecake posters of him in desperate housewives' homes, then he'll never make it to the Oval Office.
People should be talking less about his designer duds and more about his designs for pulling us out of Iraq.
Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.