Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .

Cheri Pierson Yecke has another Little House on the Prairie moment in the StarTribune on Wednesday, July 27th (okay, tomorrow, but it pays to get a head start). She complains about people being mean about how conservatives look:

Condoleezza Rice, our dignified secretary of state who started college at age 15 and earned a doctorate in her early 20s, is one of the most powerful women in the world.

Nonetheless, she has been mocked and ridiculed -- not for her intellect or knowledge of international diplomacy, but for her hair. It has been likened to that of June Cleaver, but her critics are not content to stereotype her as a dowdy relic from the supposedly subservient '50s. She has also been criticized as a "dominatrix" who oozes "sex and power" for wearing fashionable boots and a fitted black coat.

Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state whose crime was correctly interpreting Florida law in the 2000 election, was described by Time magazine columnist Margaret Carlson as Cruella De Vil. An article about Harris in the New York Times was subtitled "Mascaragate 2000," and the Washington Post suggested that she "applied her makeup with a trowel."

She has some other examples, including the treatment of Katherine Kersten by her critics, or rather of her photo in the Strib. She didn't mention Spotty as one of Katherine's detractors, which really hurt. In Kersten's case in particular, you have to admit it is kind of a silly ass picture, making Katherine look like she is smirking at the rest of us. Maybe she is.

Spotty has only made two references that could be interpreted as being about Kersten's looks. Once he called her wooly headed in reference to one of her arguments. And Spotty called Katherine his "puckered Muse," an obvious reference to her posterior sphincter muscle. Oh wait, he did call her a communis rixatrix, but that doesn't really deal directly with looks.

And Cheri, my dear, what about the conservative cruelty heaped on the appearance of Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton while they were kids? Wanna disarm? You go first.

Spotty has made fun of you several times Cheri, but he has never made fun of your looks. Until now.


Just kidding.