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6 reasons why nobody's making catty comments about the way Caroline Kennedy looks.

Just after midnight, I noted the question, asked here, with this photo:

This morning, I awoke with a list of answers:

1. Because we respect her sadness ? her beautiful family, all gone.

2. Because we are awed by the grandeur expressed in the lack of need to doll herself up. Have you ever heard the expression "WASP makeup"? I read it, perhaps in Vogue, in the 1970s. Do you know what WASP makeup is? Lipstick. It is we lesser women who see a need for more than a swipe of dull pink lipstick.

3. Because her wrinkled skin means a life lived, and we don't know exactly how this enigma lived. Did she loll about in the sun? Did she chain-smoke? Did she take drugs? Did she anguish?

4. Because if that's what 51 looks like, then don't we look young? We have an interest in perceiving her as the norm.

5. Because she's so thin. Thinness immunizes you from all sorts of criticisms about wrinkly skin and absence of glamour.

6. Glamour? There is no greater glamour than to be Caroline Kennedy. You can't layer glamour on top of glamour.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 02, 2009 (boomark / email).