Okay, the "beauty pageant winners gone wild" thing

I haven't said much about this item because I figured Jon Stewart and especially Stephen Colbert have pretty much said what there was to be said: Blah blah blah blah male hypocrisy, blah blah blah homophobia, blah blah prudes, blah prurience.

Jon & Stephen said it a lot more satirically than that. Then I turn to TMZ this afternoon and find this:

TMZ has learned that Katie Rees, Miss Nevada USA 2007, has been stripped of her title after racy photos emerged of her kissing other women and exposing herself.

And it dawns on me: It's a publicity stunt. Okay, so sometimes I'm an idiot. Otherwise it wouldn't have taken me X-many days to figure that out. But if memory serves, ratings for the pageants have been on the wane a while, and you don't have to be brilliant to figure out why.

In an age where we're only two clicks away from being able to see Britney Spears' vagina at any given time, what hold does a beauty pageant have? So some combination of the girls, Trump, and/or other officials have decided to go after a little of that L Word/Girls Gone Wild dollar.

You have to admit it's worked like a charm. Ask yourself: When was the last time you heard so much about the beauty pageant winners? That's right, back in 1984 with the Vanessa Williams issue.

Again if memory serves, back then it actually was about hlah blah blah blah male hypocrisy, blah blah blah homophobia, blah blah prudes, blah prurience. But this is just a cynical publicity stunt.