The power of wrinkles

I can't believe I am going to say this ... but Ann Althouse knocked it out of the park today when she defended Hillary Clinton's wrinkles

Via Ann Althouse, Via Drudge.com

My first reaction to that picture is simple disbelief. How can she suddenly look that much older? I know Presidents age horribly in their few years in office, but she's not President yet, and this seems to have happened overnight. Did some treatment wear off?

But here's my second reaction, on reflection: We make high demands on women. A picture like this of a male candidate would barely register. Fred Thompson always looks this bad, and people seem to think he's handsome. We need to get used to older women and get over the feeling that when women look old they are properly marginalized as "old ladies." If women are to exercise great power, they will come into that power in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We must — if we care about the advancement of women — accommodate our vision and see a face like this as mature, experienced, serious — the way we naturally and normally see men's faces.

I have the sneaking suspicion that image is photoshopped; which would add a whole new layer of sexism over the fact that republicans have been dancing around it as proof she's toast.

That picture is not going to kill Hillary Clinton's campaign. Her politics? Quite probably. The morally corrupt bunch who will stoop to nothing to save her candidacy? That's a whole 'nother thing.

Yet certainly not that photograph.

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