Cavuto pictured with Jeri Thompson
Steve Benen, bouncing off David Kurtz, writes about how Surgeon General Nominee Regina Benjamin's weight, not her rather impressive credentials, has become a focus over at FOX and ABC:
I can't recall ever hearing a comparable "debate" over the physicalcharacteristics of another recent presidential nominee, but the surgeongeneral nominee's weight has somehow, at least according to some,managed to become a legitimate area of interest.For whatever it's worth, it seems to me that it's a pretty commonoccurrence when a woman or person of color gets a prominent positionthat said person suddenly becomes subject to a number oftrivial but superficially "non-race or gender related" objections. I'm hard pressed to remember a time that a man was subjected to similar scrutiny about his weight or appearance.
Neil Cavuto,pictured above, actually hosted a guest who criticized Benjamin while wearing a t-shirt thatread "no chubbies."
(Flickr/Fred Thompson)
-- A. Serwer
