Drop those pants and show me your real qualifications**, ladies...

Some women, wrongly, smell victory in the manufactured "scandal" :

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Torie Clarke said that with the prominence of such scandals, being a female leader can be an advantage in politics and the public sector.

"Often women are seen as more honest, more sincere, as harder working," Clarke said. "This may be an opportunity for more women to step into* those positions."

Yay! Mediocrity wins -- and women, by accomplishment of being born with lady private parts, will advance their careers!

(And they wonder why so many people say women are non-competitive and need special help attaining positions of power...)

* "step into" -- interesting choice of words. No slogging their way to the top for these benificiaries of someone else's troubles. Just strap on the heels, freshen the face, and "step into" that position of power, 'specially reserved for you, lady leader, who won't be sending dirty pee-pee pictures, and if that isn't a major accomplishment in-and-of-itself deserving of promotion and positions of power, I don't know what is!

** Funny, but I thought this is what the women's movement back in the day was working against in permitting equal opportunities to naturally competitive women (yep, freaks of nature that we are, we're out here, not willing to "collaborate and compromise" our way to the top, as some say is inherent in our nature. Say, do they ever have Irish women in those "non-competitive" studies, anyway? Different breed of women, maybe...)

Instead, the talk nowadays seems to be: women are special, cut apart. "We" (they speak for all of us, dontchaknow?) need to be understood in terms of our gender.

Instead of admitting that perhaps over 80% of women truly are better off championing the man in their life, putting their energies into advancing his career and their shared family together... that they advance further in society together through her support of him, rather than going it alone... now these women want it all.

Nevermind that those women who are natural competitors, and willing to sacrifice what it takes to build skills and advance on their own merits, are the ones being denied here when you automatically advance those supporting sisters who can "step in" when somebody else's woman hasn't properly civilized her man and therefore we need a set-aside to let women play a "safer" game in leadership politics.

Some women want to get there honestly.* On our merits, skills, and the content of our ideas that can be widely disseminated once our competitive voices are heard.

Not based (like Althouse) on looks, and flirting, and silly-me-silly-me-oh-but-you're-looking-at-silly-silly-me! thought processing. Alone, these type of non-thinking women add precious little to the national conversation. Girl you know it's true...

* Funny thing is, I would have put Christiane Amanpour's career in this category. Sadly, she seems to be using her national platform to argue for women's lib inequality positions, instead of focusing on reporting international news, which plays particularly to her skill strengths.

Perhaps it's something personal, some guilt at being an upper-class woman from those cultural traditions who's "made it out" and been freed from such shackles herself, so that instead of keeping the process competitive for all women who can and would up their own games and follow that path, she believe artificial promotions and reserving positions for women to "step into" somehow makes the playing ground a bit more level.

It doesn't.