{"id":10980,"date":"2007-06-01T12:45:04","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T16:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10980.html"},"modified":"2007-06-01T12:45:04","modified_gmt":"2007-06-01T16:45:04","slug":"its-not-a-beauty-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/its-not-a-beauty-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s not a beauty contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Media Matters noted yesterday that Bill O’Reilly had some rather superficial thoughts<\/a> on the presidential race this week.<\/p>\n

On the May 30 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly said: “[Y]ou can’t get more presidential-looking than [former Massachusetts Gov.] Mitt Romney [R].” O’Reilly continued: “[I]f you were to make up a guy, this would be the guy, you know, that looks presidential. He’s got the jaw going on, the little gray thing in there.” O’Reilly concluded that Romney’s “presidential” looks bode well for his electoral prospects, saying, “I think that means a lot in America.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, this is obviously a rather silly comment to make, but it occurred to me that we’ve been hearing quite a bit lately about the candidates’ appearance.<\/p>\n

* Rep. Zack Wamp (R-Tenn.) said Fred Thompson is qualified for the presidency in part because he’s tall<\/a>: “We need a president of the United States after the 2008 election who will rise above the partisan challenges … That person is 6 foot 6. He has a commanding voice. He has a commanding presence. He makes people feel secure. He makes us feel confident.”<\/p>\n

* NewsMax praised Romney’s appearance: “First, he has sensational good looks<\/a>. People magazine named him one of the 50 most beautiful people in America. Standing 6 feet, 2 inches tall, Romney has jet-black hair, graying naturally at the temples. Women — who will play a critical role in this coming election — have a word for him: hot.”<\/p>\n

* Newsmax also praised his Ann Romney’s appearance<\/a>: “Ann is warm and very natural. She has the look of an outdoors woman bred to be an equestrian, which she is — good carriage, rosy complexion, square jaw, and blond mane. When she is not flashing her truly unbelievable smile, she may lower her eyes demurely. But Ann Romney is not demure — she may be modest, but she isn’t meek. She is unpretentious, but she isn’t shy. She lowers her eyes, thinking, and then looks up directly at her interviewer and dazzles him with that smile.”<\/p>\n

* Chris Matthews is worried about whether Al Gore had plastic surgery<\/a>: “Do you think, uh, do you think, Jill, he’s had cosmetic surgery around the eyes, below the eyes? What do you think? … You don’t want to talk about that one? Everybody’s so afraid of that one, but I think there’s some work been done. It looks pretty good actually.”
\n
\n* Dennis Kuninich’s wife’s appearance is drawing scrutiny<\/a>: “Whatever might be said about her husband’s politics, Mrs. Dennis Kucinich has exquisitely crunchy tastes in clothes-shopping: she buys a lot at resale shops and thrift stores. I’m never prouder of my wife than when she brings out Baby Nora in some gorgeous piece of clothing, and I think, ‘Oh gawd, how much did that set me back?’ — and Julie says, ‘Got that for 50 cents at the Salvation Army — isn’t it beautiful?'”<\/p>\n

* Barack Obama’s ears have drawn Rush Limbaugh’s attention<\/a>: “[I]f the guy’s sensitive about his big ears, we need to give him a new name, like Dumbo. But that doesn’t quite get it. How about Barack Obama Hussein Odumbo.”<\/p>\n

* John Edwards’ appearance has drawn more scrutiny<\/a> than almost any other aspect of his campaign.<\/p>\n

* And don’t even get me started on the media’s interest in Hillary Clinton’s choice of clothes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Obviously, some degree of superficiality is expected in any presidential campaign, but doesn’t all of this seem a little excessive?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media Matters noted yesterday that Bill O’Reilly had some rather superficial thoughts on the presidential race this week. On the May 30 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly said: “[Y]ou can’t get more presidential-looking than [former Massachusetts Gov.] Mitt Romney [R].” O’Reilly continued: “[I]f you were to make up a guy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}