Joe Scarborough -- dumba**

In a nutshell, here are the facts:

(1) Fred Thompson divorced his first wife during the Reagan Administration; (2) he remained single for years; (3) he fell for a Republican consultant 24+ years younger than him and she accepted his marriage proposal; (4) she's 40 (he's 64) and they have two kids together; (5) she's a LOT prettier than him.

Joe Scarborough, former GOP Congressman from Florida asked a guest: "You think she works the pole?"

If Scarborough said that about Monkette, I'd knock him on his ass.

"Work the pole" is a reference to a stripper, no matter what lame spin MSNBC tries to put on it. Anyone reasonably familiar with current culture knows that (see: Chris Rock's classic riff on a father's duty to his daughter -- keep her off the pole).

So here's a presidential candidate who's succeeded in a relationship with an attractive woman and of course the media concentrates on the woman's attractiveness, not the fact that she has the intellect and savvy to have been a successful political operator. It's so bad that some heretofore unremarkable Boston Herald columnist is getting her 15 minutes of national fame because she wrote a column griping about the fact that McCain's wife (52) had a tight top on while showing Greta Van Susteren around the McCain house and Mrs. Thompson wore a knockout dress at a recent event. In other words, it's some sort of scandal that they showed some cleavage.

WHAT?

Shoot, if these women can wear the clothes well, why complain? Honestly. Is it because liberal feminists are exactly the flat-chested bitter shrews that the stereotypes of them portray? Is it because Hillary is sexless and unattractive at any angle (heck, even my ma commented on her fat ankles during the 1992 campaign)?

And it is repulsive that the same liberals who decry society for both viewing only young women as attractive and then enforcing a thin-is-beautiful look that reaches these extremes would now gripe about a little exposure for highly attractive moms. Look: if Judy Nathan doesn't look right due to age-inappropriateness or something else in X outfit or Jeri Thompson can't hack wearing Y dress, that's one thing. But if they can light up a room long after the shelf life runs out for the average Hollywood starlet, they should be saluted and not villified.

That said, were I Fred Thompson, I'd still knock Scarborough on his ass.