Still Standing By Carrie Prejean

If ever you found yourself wondering why the conservative movement in this country is in such peril right now, championing “tea baggers” and trying desperately to fend off a Democratic majority in the Senate, you would need to look no further than Carrie Prejean. She, the former Miss California, ignited a minor culture war by merely stating that she does not believe gay marriage is a good idea. And yes, hyper sensitive liberals did kick up a little storm, but that hardly justifies the decision by the right to try and transform her into their next all star pundit. This book, a mindless series of rants written by somebody who has no business writing a book, is her coming-out party and it’s a rather lame one at that. Try as she might to sound wise and weathered, her every sentence is filled with empty rhetoric, and ridiculous, unearned chest-pounding.

The book itself reads just like every other conservative screed Sean Hannity has ever written a foreword to, as Prejean hits every easy target that she and her publishers deemed most important in their effort to cash in on her image. Chief among those grievances is the long-exhausted “liberal media” myth, as that is the one topic that can always cause a right-winger to froth at the mouth. Obviously she’s never read Eric Alterman or any other serious thinker on the other side of that issue, but that hardly matters when you consider who is most likely to buy this book.

She is, however, correct when she points out that often times the gay movement, purportedly standing up for freedom, will actively and aggressively crush the free speech of all those who hope to hinder their progress. Other than that the message of Still Standing is pretty clear and pretty shallow. . .’God God God. Forgive Forgive Forgive. Strength Strength Strength.’ An intellectual heavyweight she ain’t but hey, what were you expecting?

Much of this mercifully short book focuses on the beauty pageant industry itself, but even that part of the book fails miserably as you can learn just as much about that kind of stuff watching Little Miss Sunshine. Prejean, predictably, is against them because they like totally made her dye her hair and get a boob job (and then sued her for them). It’s hardly worth pointing out, but, without them she would never be allowed to write a book and would instead be one more lost bimbo out wandering the streets of San Diego.

Prejan seems shocked (!) that the whole industry came down on her for not giving a non-answer during the pageant as though she didn’t know those were the rules of the game going in. Yes, these things are boring and oppressive and anti-free speech, but if she is so against them then why did she devote such a huge chunk of her life to them?

Finally, I would be doing you wrong if I failed to mention the disgustingly delicious sex tape of Prejean that surfaced after this book came out, completely undermining all the squawking she does about living a clean Christian life. And that really is the problem with the conservatives right now – to get votes they have to glorify a lifestyle that nobody really wants to partake in. So they send a 22-year-old beauty queen on TV to tell everybody to live a morally pure life then act stunned when it bites them in the ass. And no, sorry, it is not enough to just brush the whole thing off by saying “Well, we all had youthful indiscretions.” Indeed, but we don’t all go around telling other people how to live and making them feel bad for caving to human nature. But whatever, those who believe in Miss Prejean will believe in her, sex tape or no sex tape, until she stops being useful to the Republican Party.

Author: Carrie Prejean
Pages: 256
Publisher: Regnery Press