22 April 2006

Frightwig

Kendra posts this horrific picture of our de facto first lady, which you might think a bit uncharitable on Kendra's part except that nearly every photo of Cherie Blair is at least somewhat disturbing if not downright frightening. Put as nicely as possible, she looks like a bit of a madwoman.

Cherie's defenders routinely argue that she is actually a very good-looking and charming woman who just happens to photograph badly; this, they claim, is because she is so animated that a huge variety of expressions flits constantly across her face, giving malevolent journalists more than ample opportunities to catch her off-key or out of kilter.

Be that as it may (I've never seen the woman in person, so I can't testify to the validity of this argument), the point of Kendra's post and not a little hubbub in the local media is that it cost the Labour Party £7,700 ($13,000) to keep Cherie's barnet in order during the last of election. As they frequently chant at football matches when an expensive player stuffs things up: "What a waste of money."

Since the money came exclusively from the contributions of dutiful Labour Party members, it's probably not the business of the general public anyway, but what might be (and what really offends me about the woman) is that she has become a multi-millionaire, largely at taxpayer expense, by prosecuting legal cases that frequently undermine the expressed aims of her husband's government. When you read about one of those cases that the Daily Mail likes to refer to as "political correctness gone mad," when someone racks up a payout because someone called it a "blackboard" instead of a chalkboard, if a schoolgirl wants the right to wear a medieval hiljab instead of the uniform approved by the Muslim heads of her school, if a boy thinks he's been hard done by for being expelled after trying to burn down the school, chances are Mrs Blair will be in the midst of it, raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds in payments from the taxpayer-funded Legal Aid.

Granted, she wasn't involved in the infamous "farting chair" case, in which a school administrator claimed she'd been driven mad - to the tune of a cool £1 million in damages - by a chair that made rude noises whenever she sat down, but it's certainly not far from the sort of case Cherie specialises in.

Cherie-bashers, much like critics of Hillary Clinton, are often accused of being instinctively repelled by "strong women," but plenty of women have successful careers and wield great power without drastically raising so many hackles. Even Condoleeza Rice, who has no end of critics for her political and moral views, doesn't seem to arouse the same sort of personal antipathy. The difference between Mrs Blair and Mrs Clinton, though (in addition to there being no suggestion that the Blairs' marriage is a sham for political purposes) is that nobody is expecting Cherie to make a run for Prime Minister in the future. And why should she? She's making way more money at her present scam.

But seriously, Cherie, £245 a day for that eggbeater treatment? A couple centuries ago that a word in your husband's ear would have had the offending hairdresser off to the Tower for a very short back and sides.

2 comments:

Matt Andrews said...

It's not the hair that's the issue for me, it's the awful rubber gurning face.. ugh.

Kendra K. said...

she wasn't always such a hag face though. in 2001 she looked pleasant in person. now she looks withered with a wig.