... the champion of posting articles that endlessly bemoan the shallow media fascination du jour, having the media cake and eating it, too.

At least they didn't put her big blonde body with her big smile as the main photo. That's their normal style (and there's still time).

That said, I think the attacks on Miss California are disgusting. Her opinions on gay marriage were nothing worse than ignorant. Since when do we expect beauty pageant contestants to be anything else? And if a person has never actually met any gay people (knowingly), how could their opinions be anything but ignorant?

So for this, we're supposed to celebrate the attacks on her. We're supposed to cheer on the people who told us about her breast implants, we're supposed to hope they take her crown. Well, those things didn't have anything to do with her opinions on homosexuality, and however shallow I find the whole Miss USA pageant, there's really very little question that she deserves what level of success she's "achieved" in that world.

Now she's a hero to the right, and because the attacks against her have been so exaggerated, instead of being a pretty face armed with only her ignorant opinions and a 4th-rate brain to match, she's armed with perfectly justified indignation.

Way to go, everyone who didn't understand that the correct way to deal with the idiot was to ignore her.

I'm as much of a fan of hotties as the next guy, but what purpose to beauty pageants serve?

In what universe does it make sense that we should even know this woman's name, let alone her opinions or anything else about her?

be prepared for attention.

frickin' hoo . . .

I am neither outraged nor fascinated by her. "Fascinated," please. One of the things that happens when lots of lots of people have access to media is that a person can become relatively famous when only a minority of the population cares, because that minority still works out to a lot of people. I'm betting the majority doesn't care.

If Lil' Homophobe would have just come out with another conversational lump of preprocessed verbal pablum about "wanting to help people", I could give a fuck re her topless modeling and prepaid fake rack. But since she decided to bray on about her deep commitment to bigotry--well, brothers & sisters, the gossip train has done left the station. Presenting yourself as a moral arbiter while not adhering to the (plainly sexist, backward, and just plain stupid) code of conduct of your bullshit organization makes you as dumb as a sack of rocks.

She embraced the rigid morality of her keepers and was bit on the ass by the same platitudes and marginalization she visited upon others. Hard cheese.

She believes homosexuals are less deserving of equal rights than straight people--i.e., she's a homophobe. She is demeaning and dismissive of gay people as a class. For that, I'd say she's willfully ignorant. She denigrates the 48% of Californians who did not think that stripping away rights from gays was reasonable. That makes her arrogant.

Oh, and she's a liar, too.

She voluntarily entered the pageant world, which carries with it specific expectations for behavior. Now we find out that she failed in adhering to them but also tried to cover up her failure. Why should we feel any pity?

Miss California; Joe the Plumber; the Octomom... and who can forget the Runaway Bride?

I wish I could.

It's equal parts tacky and tragic that Amerika specializes in bringing forth such fluky celebrities.

I guess something had to replace the carnival sideshows featuring every variety of deformed and misshapen wretch unable to find a way to make a respectable living.

Miss California is certainly more to be pitied than censured; but neither she nor the "story" that propelled her to fame deserves significant media attention and scrutiny.

Beauty pageants are hypocritical by their very nature. On one side they tell girls that their worth is based on their looks. On the other hand they tell girls their looks don't really matter but their "character". You simply can't have it both ways and that's what Carrie Prejean is teaching us.

It's "damned" if you do or don't.

"Dammed" is what the Colorado River is at Lake Powell.

As much as I disagree with her position on gay marriage, I wonder how much of what's really going on in response to her answer is really just about the insipid, wishy-washy, inarticulate and unintelligent way she stated her opinion. She's being defended because she had the courage to state her opinion, and I'd probably agree if she did state a real oppinion instead of flailing around the way she did. First she says she's glad she lives in a country where it's a choice - which it is in only a few states - and then she says it's wrong. Then the brilliant phrase "opposite marriage." Then, the fact that her reason to be against it is "the way she was raised," which isn't worth a warm fart in my book. If she had had a reason that could be intelligently articulated, I wonder if she'd be faring better.

But I don't feel sorry for her. She pointed herself in this direction and has, in the pursuits she's followed, contributed to the sad, pitiful way women who put themselves on display get harshly judged. She helped build it.

...but what, exactly, is the definition of "semi-nude"? I assumed it meant topless, but with actual breasts and nipples showing.

I saw the picture of Miss Prejean in her underpants, and there was nothing to see except her bare back. (Miley Cyrus, anyone?)

On Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham and Gloria Feldt got into this. Ingraham asked, "Where are the feminists?"

Well, I guess they're arriving.

But not this feminist. Beauty pageants are, at least as they stand now, a largely anti-feminist spectacle and we usually have little esteem for the women who compete in them. So one turns out to be a hypocrite and a liar. She brought it on herself. And, you know what? We ALL know who Carrie Prejean is--and I could not name another Miss USA runner-up if my life depended on it. I couldn't even name but maybe two or three Miss USA winners.

She's gained fame and a doting audience [the Christian right], and now even feminists are sympathizing with her. Poor little Prejean, indeed.