Kindly Póg Mo Thóin

It’s damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t time!

It’s not just on the issues that Hillary Clinton can’t cut a break. Now we’ve got reporters wondering why she won’t she can’t be like those hot-blooded Latinas and show us her tits:

When Argentina’s foxy first lady and fashionista Cristina Kirchner announced July 2 that she would run for president, she allowed her long, black hair to cascade over a plunging neckline.

But America’s first lady of politics, Hillary Rodham Clinton — who has often been compared to Kirchner — opted for a solid black pants suit during her recent presidential debate.

Other international women with brains and power, such as France’s Ségolène Royal, flaunt their sexuality. But Americans prefer to play the dowdy card.

In a pragmatic nation with Puritan roots, “no nonsense” and “professional” get more votes than “sexy,” say experts in both fashion and politics.

And when she dons a deep v?

There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn’t an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable. . . .

The cleavage, however, is an exceptional kind of flourish. After all, it’s not a matter of what she’s wearing but rather what’s being revealed. It’s tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!

Not so long ago, Jacqui Smith, the new British home secretary, spoke before the House of Commons showing far more cleavage than Clinton. If Clinton’s was a teasing display, then Smith’s was a full-fledged come-on. But somehow it wasn’t as unnerving. Perhaps that’s because Smith’s cleavage seemed to be presented so forthrightly. Smith’s fitted jacket and her dramatic necklace combined to draw the eye directly to her bosom. There they were . . . all part of a bold, confident style package.

With Clinton, there was the sense that you were catching a surreptitious glimpse at something private. You were intruding — being a voyeur. Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman is asking to be objectified, but it does suggest a certain confidence and physical ease. It means that a woman is content being perceived as a sexual person in addition to being seen as someone who is intelligent, authoritative, witty and whatever else might define her personality. It also means that she feels that all those other characteristics are so apparent and undeniable, that they will not be overshadowed.

To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres is a provocation. It requires that a woman be utterly at ease in her skin, coolly confident about her appearance, unflinching about her sense of style. Any hint of ambivalence makes everyone uncomfortable. And in matters of style, Clinton is as noncommittal as ever.

Ready for that shocking, unsettling display of Senatorial ta-tas? Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

I don’t think anyone’s going to be throwing beads at her, Robin. As Steve said, you probably have half a dozen women in your office showing more cleavage than that, and you probably don’t even give it a second thought.

In any event, you know why Hillary adopted the uniform of slightly boxy black pantsuits? Because she didn’t want it to be about her appearance. And given how often the press scrutinized her look while she was First Lady — am I the only one who remembers the breathless reporting of every change in hairstyle, and the focus on her circa-1992 headbands? — why the hell wouldn’t she want to standardize and professionalize her image as she was moving into her own political career?

Interesting, too, that this is the issue the press latches onto with her to suggest phoniness or flightiness or whatever they’re deciding to focus on this week. Male Democrats always get criticized about the price of their haircuts, and now it turns out Mitt Romney drops a shitload of money on professional makeup artists before big TV appearances. I mean, haven’t we known the value of makeup in TV appearances since at least the Kennedy-Nixon debate? But there’s no traction to be gained with going after a female candidate on hair and makeup — the reaction is likely to be, “Yeah? So?” because women are supposed to wear makeup and care about their hair. Men have to be Manly.

And women have to be Womanly, just not very much in politics, thank you. It seems pretty clear that Hillary is softening her image in response to some of the she’s-really-masculine chatter going around (like this execrable Salon piece, which position Hillary as the “male” candidate and Obama as the “female” candidate, and ended with “May the best woman win.” You also have to read the author’s idiotic explanation, in response to letter-writers who accused him of being a Karl Rove plant trying to discredit Obama. Not too many people were upset that “feminine traits” were considered bad, or that the author considered Hillary’s strongest traits to be “masculine” ones, though a lot of people pointed out that Obama had to work against a stereotype of black men as threatening.  He also is on the horns of a dilemma).

But she can’t soften it too much, or she’d be seen as frivolous (”feminine” being synonymous).  She’s been accused of being an ice queen, but being too warm or loosening up a bit gets articles in the freaking Washington Post about how upsetting it is to see her cleavage, that slut.

Nope, she can never win.