Meghan McCain vs. Laura Ingraham: Cut the Fat Out of the GOP Discussion

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Let me just preface this by saying that I sincerely like Meghan McCain. Aside from the fact that we both spell our first names the same, I like her in the way that we all liked George W. Bush before he became president: She's someone whom I'd like to have a beer with, but I'm glad she's not leading my country.

I've been sitting on the sidelines of her entrée into punditry, especially when it came to her feud with Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. In fact, I can't even believe I'm writing about this. But now that Ms. McCain is linking back to her old campaign blog entries, I thought I should come clean. A little over a year ago, McCain addressed criticism over her weight, which I wrote about in my personal blog at the time:

On March 10th, Meghan's post started like this:

"As you may have noticed, I seldom use the Blogette as a medium to discuss social or political issues unless I feel particularly compelled to do so. This is one of those times."

OMG!! What is she going to talk about? Maybe she's going to talk about an actual issue like abortion or the war or immigration or something besides fashion and make-up tips? Is she finally gonna call out the New York Times for what they said about her dad?

[the night the NYT story broke she wrote, "Having grown up in politics, I know it's an industry that, for all intents and purposes, is known for being dirty and cruel," and did not mention the story specifically...]

No. She was upset about people on the campaign trail criticizing her weight. The last straw was someone handing her a business card for a liposuction professional. Honestly, I agree that such behavior is disturbing. Kudos to her pride in her curves. I just wish she hadn't announced it with such gravity. Her self image is not a "social or political issue;" it's a personal one.

Politics is a cruel "industry." And if you don't give people something substantive to criticize, like your policy views, people start making fun of your pantsuits.

My point there, in case my sledgehammer somehow missed, was that the weight discussion was a dodge. And thus it remains.

Earlier this week, McCain posted a link to that 2008 entry on the front page of her blog, McCain Blogette, in reference to conservative pundit Ingraham criticizing her for being "plus sized." She also wrote this about the fat feud on her Daily Beast blog:

I expected substantive criticism from conservative pundits for my views, particularly my recent criticism of Ann Coulter. That is the nature of political discourse, and my intent was to generate discussion about the current problems facing the Republican Party. Unfortunately, even though Ingraham is more than 20 years older than I and has been a political pundit for longer, almost, than I have been alive, she responded in a form that was embarrassing to herself and to any woman listening to her radio program who was not a size 0.

I fail to see how pointing out Ingraham's advanced age and calling her argument petty in the same breath is productive. Also, her sudden seriousness clashes with her use of Daily Beast as a personal dating site. But, in essence, McCain is right: Ingraham was being needlessly nasty. And I say "needlessly" because there's plenty of other stuff to criticize Meghan McCain over.

Number one on my list is that, while she knows nothing about the economy, she insists that Republicans are always right when it comes to their often hypocritical fiscal policies. She basically told Rachel Maddow that she didn't have to take Econ 101 in school, because father knows best.

Bottom line: Both McCain and Ingraham are taking the easy way out. Exchanging barbs about being too fat or too old is a lot less demanding on the noggin than arguing policy.

The real issue here is clearly the squabbling over the title of "leader" of the Republican Party. Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Jonathan Krohn are all desperate for that crown, and there's no way that they're going to give it up to someone with the same name as that guy who lost them the White House.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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