The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

There are many important things to think about today -- what will President Obama do in Afghanistan? -- but for Meghan McCain no subject is ever more important than Meghan McCain.

Last night, my young and quite distant cousin, daughter of Republican presidential loser John McCain, had what one blogger called a "Twitter breakdown," a public tantrum performed for the benefit of the more than 50,000 people who subscribe to her Twitter feed.

Having chronicled Meghan's hysterical Twitter snit on my own blog, there's no need to recount the laughable details here. Suffice it to say that she dishes it out -- vulgar put-downs of Michelle Malkin, smugly superior sarcasm toward Ann Coulter, etc. -- but can't take it. So, in a message last night, she promised that she is "getting the f***k off Twitter."

Ironically, her egoistic episode began when Miss Meghan posted a photo of herself holding a book about Andy Warhol, the pop artist whose best-known aphorism was, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Meghan's 15 minutes have long since expired and if she is stupid enough to follow through on last night's impulsive threat to quit Twittering -- 50,000 subscribers is an enviable readership for online promotion -- the world will have another laugh at her expense.

Whatever you do, however, don't make fun of Meghan for being chubby. That's the self-indulgent theme of her latest column at Tina Brown's Daily Beast. And this is one of the rare occasions when I agree with my pudgy young cousin, whose column boasts about her size-10 derriere.

Being a Southerner -- my kinship with the senatorial branch of the McCain family involves an 18th-century Carolinian ancestor -- I've never minded a gal "with a little meat on her bones," as we say down home. In fact, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I was the only conservative journalist in Washington who never made a fat joke at the expense of President Clinton's delightfully weighty mistress.

Like the concupiscent Arkansan, I found Miss Lewinsky's zaftig figure extraordinarily alluring and was quite grateful that it was Bubba, and not I, who was led into that particular temptation. Every time CNN showed Monica bouncing and jiggling out of the federal courthouse after her grand jury appearances, I'd let out a low whistle and mutter: "There, but for the grace of God, go I!"

Meghan McCain obviously has never aroused such guilty thoughts in my heart. No matter what people say about Southerners and their cousins, that's just a stereotype, like the unfair stereotypes about dumb blondes and spoiled rich girls. Still, I think Meg's bubbly chubbiness is quite fetching and only wish that everyone shared my downhome admiration for a gal who, by all appearances, isn't ashamed to ask for second helpings of barbecue and biscuits.

Therefore, I trust that American Spectator readers who wish to comment will show Miss Meghan the kind of respect she deserves, and that all comments on this subject will be appropriate and decorous. Please, I beg you: NO FAT JOKES!