Saturday, December 23, 2006
One cannot stand in a supermarket checkout line without seeing tabloid headlines screaming speculation about the death of Princess Diana in 1997. I was not expecting to see a similar vein on The Post's op-ed page, though.
Eugene Robinson's Dec. 15 column, "The Diana Story We Love," took speculation to a newly insulting level. He wrote that had Princess Diana lived, "she would have the wrinkles and bulges that come with middle age."
Robinson has apparently not seen advertisements from cosmetics companies featuring 50-plus women -- such as Christie Brinkley, Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton -- with no apparent wrinkles or bulges. For a woman with the resources that were available to Princess Diana, looking good in her 40s would have been easy.
Real beauty, however, cannot be purchased at a cosmetics counter or achieved via a personal trainer. By all accounts Princess Diana was a devoted mother and was deeply involved in her charity work. Living a full, good life and helping others is the best beauty secret of all.
-- Diane M. Bettge
Fairfax
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Regarding Libby Copeland's Dec. 14 Style story, "The Dreamy Candidate with the Swoon Vote":
As a black woman, I actually do not find Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) someone "to swoon" over. He's a fine-looking fellow but nothing to write home about. There are many young black men who are better looking than he. If one of my daughters brought him home, I'd be more impressed with his education and accomplishments than with his looks.
From where I sit, the current swoon candidate is not Obama, nor was it ever Gen. Wesley K. Clark or Gov. Howard Dean. For those who forgot, those last two were supported not for their appearances but for their stance on the Iraq war. Very few were swooning over Dean's looks; rather, they had a crush because a forceful opposition voice was emanating from a politician when very few of those voices were being heard. As for Clark, dragging a four-star general and 37-year Army veteran who won our last war into the mix was just plain silly.
The actual swoon candidates for 2008 are John Edwards, who was also the swoon candidate in 2004, which is why he is still being promoted but in a low-key, tasteful manner; and Gov. Mitt Romney. These two men were foolish enough to have supported the idiotic war when it counted, but luckily (for them) they resemble the manicured matinee idols whom this society has been taught to admire. True swoon candidates don't get written up in The Post solely because of their looks. Instead, swooning reporters write stories about how great those candidates are in every way other than their looks to throw off the scent that they themselves are leaving!
-- C.J. McClendon
San Leandro, Calif.
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