just over 24 hours since the big announcement and we have discussed Hillary's

[Rilgin]

122. Slight Contradiction

I think your heart is in the right place and your implicit point that looks should be irrelevant I totally agree with.

However, your assertion that this is only women (and your cite of Bush) is just wrong. Bush had his looks compared often to a chimp. This was ongoing. People mentioned his looks often as a method of derogating him (implying stupidity by appearance) rather than just sticking to the fact that he was a policy disaster. Much was made of Scott Brown as a playgirl model to imply he was an airhead.

In the democratic party, there are plenty of examples. Right from the start, John Edwards was labeled a pretty boy and there was much discussion about his hair. There were plenty of assertions that kuchinich could not win because of his looks. Those were negative assertions. There were positive ones on Clinton and Obama about looking hip and being good looking.

It is a more sensitive topic with women because of historical issues of society associating a woman's whole worth with her appearance but it also happens with men. With men the word attractive is not used as much in politics but is short formed to "looking presidential". However, almost always the first thing people pundits and commentators describe is how the candidate appears. I often hear "i like or trust the way this candidate looks" applied to male candidates. My aunt used to drive me crazy with this statement of why she supported Reagan. This may be a facet of human nature to be influenced by appearance and maybe unavoidable to some extent.

The problem is when appearance is all that people look at. Basically there net is just full of assholes as you have observed and some of these people composed of both sexes judge others and concentrate only on appearance rather than substance.