Wednesday, September 06, 2006

As a woman, I say this just isn't right

From a cruel (but presumably fair) review of debutante Katie Couric:

The real purpose of this report was to show off Lara Logan, the intensely telegenic reporter who serves as foreign correspondent. She went undercover in Afghanistan, much as Rather had done many many years ago. But as a woman, Logan said, her Taliban hosts "insisted I cover everything but my eyes."

So let's work that a bit: As a woman, Logan, who is indeed a woman, talked about her trip. As a woman, Logan talked about her checkbook.

I'm the first to admit women have distinctive views, and of course one of the underlying points of the paragraph is disparate treatment of women, but even so, I don't think it was the act of speaking that was meant to be identified as female.

So presumably it was her Taliban hosts who were acting as a woman. This is conceivable, since her hosts could have been women. But a group of them acting as a single woman? Intriguing, I admit, but that sort of thing seems more likely in New York than Afghanistan.

And isn't it more likely that it would be Afghan men than women insisting on the garb? Not exclusively, to be sure, but take the men away and I'm guessing the cloak goes soon after.

Of course none of this matters a whit. E.B. White's dead, and he didn't work in Washington anyway. Only one thing matters, baby, and it's the image:

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