If a woman isn’t concerned with her appearance, you can be certain everyone else will be. The same folks who have been accusing Bachmann of “acting like a celebrity” and being a “diva” would talk about how dog-tired and haggard she looks if her handlers didn’t make sure her props were in order. Before long the word would be out: She can’t take the heat. She’s exhausted. Any minute now, a migraine.
The Bachmann-as-diva meme took off a couple weeks ago and now has become entrenched as, here we go, her “narrative.” Politico reported that she campaigned in Waterloo, Iowa, “like a celebrity.”
“And by ‘celebrity,’ they mean diva,” wrote New York magazine.
According to Politico: “She camped out in her bus, parked on the street in front of a nearby Ramada Hotel, until it was time to take the stage. … It was not until a second staffer assured her that the lighting had been changed and a second introduction piped over the loudspeakers that she entered the former dance hall here. By the time she made her big entrance to the bright lights and blaring music, the crowd seemed puzzled.”
Double standard
In contrast, of course, Rick Perry showed up early, stayed late, shook hands and posed, yadayadayada. Various blogs have picked up the diva thread. One even pointed out that Bachmann was wearing false eyelashes. (Harsh secret: Most women on television are wearing a few false eyelashes, and some of the men are wearing eyeliner and mascara. If you don’t, you look dead. And if you’re a politician, you are.)