Living as I do in an attic in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., a lefty environ that functions as the capital’s reply to Berkeley, I would have a hard time “overdosing on fabulousness.” Not so for columnist and deep thinker Tina Brown.
Ms. Brown finds the wives of the Democratic candidates “something of a visual relief to those of us who have overdoses on fabulousness.” Don’t women just really know how to stick it to each other without seeming to?
I haven’t yet made up my mind about the return manliness in politics (scroll down), but I do know that Elizabeth Edwards isn’t going to be thrilled to read Tina’s loving description of her “big, concerned face blown up even bigger on a TV screen usually filled with post-adolescent midriffs.”
Ah, yes, manliness waxes and wanes, but cattiness is eternal. Theresa Heinz Kerry, who seems, wisely, to have made her major gaffes early, came across as more fabulous than the rest. But I doubt if any woman likes oh-about umpteen references to her age (65).
As for poor Judy Steinberg Dean’s appearance on TV after even the media feminists (the fiendish MoDo comes to mind) had trashed her, Tina notes, “The sane, unpretentious country doctor with the sweet smile, who is clearly cherished by her temperamental husband, gave spiky female journalists a sudden rush of shame.”
Whether you though of “Judy Dean” as a Stepford Doctor (me) or Hedda Nussbaum (Lucianne Goldberg), you’ve got to feel for her with this description. I almost expected Tina to indulge in that old chestnut for less-than-ravishing females: “She has a big heart and makes her own clothes.” Yikes!