Carrie Prejean, the ousted Miss California, has been making the rounds, getting a lot more airtime than any state-level beauty queen in history to complain that everyone's trying to silence her. She's one of a lot of people in the news lately who remind me of that line on the tape where now-ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich was saying, of the chance to appoint a U.S. Senator, something like "I've got this thing and I'm going to find some way to profit from it." And in a way, I have trouble faulting Ms. Prejean for what she's trying to do.
I think beauty pageants are shallow and bogus but I certainly understand why an attractive 21-year-old lady might see one as her best opportunity to make some money, attain some fame and maybe springboard to a lucrative career. And while I find her politics repugnant, I also see the sums of cash some are making by pandering to the Palin boosters and I get where she's coming from there, as well. If she'd done what a proper Miss California was supposed to do, no one would ever have heard of her. She wouldn't have a book coming out that a lot of right-wingers will buy. She wouldn't be receiving whatever offers and deals she's going to wring out of all this. Whether she winds up lecturing on the Bob Jones circuit or marketing sex tapes — not that there's a huge difference between those two options — she'll make more than if she'd just been a nice, non-controversial pageant winner appearing at boat shows.
Her appearance last night on Larry King Live was a two-way train wreck. She didn't want to answer questions and he, as usual, didn't know what to ask. Still, the spot served both their purposes. He got some tune-in. She sold some books. I don't see that there's much more happening there than that.
The one thing she said I could believe was sincere was that Sarah Palin is her role model. A former beauty contestant who's becoming rich and famous saying vapid, baseless things and firing up the rabid right? Yeah, sure. I can see where she gets it.