Editorial: Role models no more

Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006 | 7:04 a.m.

J ust when we thought reality TV couldn't get worse, Donald Trump's Miss USA pageant has become embroiled in a controversy that rivals any bad melodrama.

In just a couple of days this month, the real estate and pageant kingpin:

It doesn't make sense that the women who broke the rules after they won are absolved while the woman who broke the rules before she was part of the contest is found guilty. Trump's thinking apparently goes something like this: Conner's actions were "foolish" and "childish" but she has a good heart, and Blair was caught up alongside her. The pictures of Rees are "disgusting," Trump said, and not "representative of Miss USA."

The Miss USA pageant says its winners are held to, ahem, strict rules because they are seen as role models, and yet pageant officials bend the rules for their top role models.

The decisions only make sense when you consider that these pageants are founded on an unrealistic standard for women, who are expected to be goddesses - alluring, sexy, smart - and above reproach.

Pageant critics have long complained of a double standard for women, and Trump's decision just adds another: Breaking the rules is OK, as long as you don't get caught on film.