Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Miss Universe says it all for GOP debaters

IT SEEMS FITTING that the Miss Universe contest competed on TV with the Republican candidates debate Monday night as beauty contests in which both events fed us predigested answers to please the judges. Even the hype was intended to be breathlessly fetching for the viewer.

The advance reporting alerted us to the possibility that the presidential candidates would get after each other, and even crash in fireballs, as they sometimes do in the Indy 500 for the benefit of those spectators anticipating bloodshed. It wasn't enough to persuade me to skip the NFL game. Instead, I later scanned the on-line coverage. Smart move.

For starters, there was a huge difference in apparel, of course, ranging from baring to boring. Do you think we might get a self-conscious presidential debate in Nehru suits to remind the audience of the candidates' grasp of history? Somehow black business suits just don't work very well with the glittering pageantry of the moment.

I concede that I was taken by Miss Universe winner's response to the question of how she might change her "personal characteristics" if she could. Leila Lopes ( the winner) declared:
"Thank God, I'm very well satisfied with the way God created me and I would not change a thing. I consider myself a woman with inner beauty. I have my principles. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I plan to follow this through the rest of my life."
That pretty well touches all of the principled bases for the self-assured debaters, too. No one can ever doubt their self-satisfaction in the pursuit of the Oval Office. Still, there were voices on stage with thoughts that made you wonder about their crazy pursuit of the crown. For example, Michele Bachmann attacked Rick Perry for mandating the use of an anti-cancer vaccine on teenage girls. There's more, folks.

She then rushed off to speak to Fox News, which is a kind of latrine for conservatives who have to go, to warn of the dangers of the vaccine. She said she had been told by one mother that the latter's daughter suffered mental retardation after she was vaccinated!

Poor Michele, whose fortunes are falling as fast as they once arose. That wouldn't even get her an honorable mention in the la-la land of Miss Universe.










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