But barbie is a whore

The rich are the scum of the earth in every country. G. K. Chesterton, Flying Inn (1914) I'll start with Chesterton because while the sex issue in this story of Belinda's latest stroll is all over the web, the class issue is going untouched. And by class, I don't just mean the fact that Paul Martin and Barbie have none.

• the musk of gender, I'm afraid, lingers in the nose across the whole thread. I'm not going to engage in hand-wringing about it; male politicians are quite routinely, not to say incessantly, called "whores". Like anyone else born in 1971 I would have an instinctive fear of calling a female politician a "whore", but in truth we only suffer this fear here precisely because we are talking about a politician whose looks are the substantive, universally professed basis for her status and renown. It seems strange to cut her extra slack precisely because she has no identifiable record of achievement, is a jet-setting serial monogamist who pals around with Bill Clinton, and isn't what you'd call ragingly intelligent. Colby Cosh
• Belinda Stronach had barely made her debut as a Liberal yesterday when like-minded callers were pre-emptively phoning Toronto radio stations to bemoan the sexist nature of anyone who might in the ensuing days dare to label the woman a political whore. Oh, how very cute, and how very familiar: It is never enough for the Liberal Party of Canada, its henchmen or supporters, to let the people decide what they will make of a given situation. The good Liberal always attempts to dictate the very language of what will, and what won't, constitute the parameters of fair comment and reasonable discussion thereafter. But let us, just this once, dispense with those niceties. Christie Blatchford in The Globe and Mail (Hell Yeah!!! -ed. ). The Last Amazon, another woman after my own heart, carries a longer quote from Blatch.
• Stronach, to be plain, is not known for long-term fidelity. To put the nicest spin on it, she craves constant stimulation, new vistas to conquer. To be less charitable, she's easily bored and used to assuming authority without first earning it... Now Stronach doesn't have to endure a boring, if not eternal, wait for her Cabinet position. After all, she's been in politics for over a year! Now she has her nice starter Cabinet post as head of Human Resources and Skills Development. Ann Kingston, The National Post
• Belinda doesn't seem to stay with men for long. Or careers. Or, as it turns out, political parties. She's always eyeing the next big thing just over the horizon. She's not that keen on working her way up from the bottom. She'd rather start somewhere near the top, where she can make a difference right away. "She feels she's gifted," her father, Frank, once said. Belinda says her private life is not our business. Still, you can't help detecting a few trends. She has a habit of mixing up love and business and ambition. Love generally winds up third. Peggy Wente, The Globe and Mail
• AGWN has a look at the Liberal candidate who Paul Martin turfed from running in Stronach's riding - Martha Hall Findlay. Not to mention the woman who was dumped from cabinet to make room for Stronach.

The quotes from three well known women reporters above are all taken from Andrew Coyne's blog. Andrew also gives us an interesting tidbit, suggesting that not getting on TV might have been the trigger for the Barbie's big move. Not ideology, not policy, not principle, just naked ambition. How dare I not get what I want when I want it. The Last Amazon's longer quote from Blatchford contains this:

true to Liberal form, Ms. Stronach apparently already believes she has somehow begun to clean things up, just by her presence. Listen to what she said yesterday: "Let me say I'm very proud to undertake this role, to bring greater ethics, because without ethics, that's the foundation, that's our moral fiber." Huh? How has she done anything there but demonstrate her own feeble grasp of that other official language, English?

Truly a hilarious quote. It's almost Python-esque if you read it straight. If this was about ethics, why did she hold out for a cabinet seat? Why do it now, days after voting no confidence in the government she's joining? Why not sit as an independent? My parsing of it, however, is that what Barbie means by "ethics" is that the CPC no longer serves her needs. The blather about ethics, about Quebec separation, about negativity, about "being a woman" (oy!) - those are just fig leaves. People like Barbie - and Paul - do what they do out of greed and ambition. They paper over it with rhetoric only because they have to. Darn this democracy stuff, this common tripe about ethics. Why can't I just do what I want? A certain amount of this kind of behavior is to be expected in politics because politics is about the art of compromise. Sometimes when you compromise you need to paper over your past statements, statements that were intended to rally enough support so that you would not need to compromise as much as the other guy. That is normal. That is par for the course. What is decidedly abnormal is displaying no serious grasp of political issues, using daddy's money and politcal connections, sleeping with people to get ahead, and then when all of that fails to work quickly enough, jumping ship and having the gall - the Gall!- to say that "this is about ethics." Barbie is a whore. Every woman I respect has given that verdict. I pity her. Her circumstances have left her crippled in ways that are obvious to most of us who have to work for every dime we get, who's parents didn't hand us everything we ever asked for. I doubt if she could fathom why I think she's pitiful and that only underlines the pathos of it. The best people you ever meet are almost always those who suffered for people and things they love. I doubt Barbie's done too much of that. Lest I be accused of being too partisan, rest assured I'm not making saints out of the CPC, because saints they ain't. This is what a modern saint looks like.