[Righty Punditocracy]

Those Saucy Conservatives!

The good folks at American Prospect have been, bless their hearts, slogging through John Derbyshire's mire. Derbyshire, for those of you who are not fans of right-wing fanatacism, is an apologist for torture ("The Abu Ghraib 'scandal': Good. Kick one for me."), is flagrantly homophobic and sexist. Garance Franke-Ruta finds more in his column yesterday at the National Review (emphasis, obviously, mine):

Jennifer's bristols. Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston's bristols?** No, I didn't. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20. The Nautilus and the treadmill can add a half decade or so, but by 36 the bloom is definitely off the rose. Very few of us, however, can face up to this fact honestly, and I am sure this diary item will generate more angry e-mails of protest than everything else I have written this month.

** Bristols. Cockney rhyming slang. There is a well-known soccer team in England named Bristol City.

It's very chic among conservatives to be politically incorrect. Craving 15-year-olds is something more than politically incorrect (some call it illegal). Will his conservative cohorts back him up? What would Dobson say? Franke-Ruta, for her part, said this: " There is a word for men who fetishize the beauty of teenage and pubescent girls, and it is not a very nice one." Indeed.

Note: I renamed this post. It sort of went a different direction than I intended, and the origional title was oblique.