On Scott Brown's Alleged "Sexiness", "Ability To Hold Things Correctly."

“He was drop-dead gorgeous,” says one booker who succumbed to the senator’s youthful looks and “excellent hands.” (See his modeling portfolio here!) And oh! Guess who else is smitten?

If you guessed Maureen Dowd, you’re right! In yesterday’s New York Times, she went on a rather peculiar screed, unfortunately titled “Bringing Sexy Back,” about what the Boston Herald terms “the buff, 50-year-old GOP rising star,” contrasting his genuinely populist sensibility with that of former great hope Obama. (Or as Dowd, with typical elan, terms them, “Barry and Scotty.”) Given that Dowd always has tongue planted cutely in cheek (and both feet planted cutely in high school) it’s hard to take her spate of generalizations about public taste too seriously. Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte feels it’s just rank projecting on the writer’s part:

[S]eeing as these two are married men who’ve expressed, as far as I know, exactly no interest in Dowd, its seems a little premature for her to explain her decision-making process to the public at large while assuming we all share her sexual preferences for guys who drive pick-up trucks over guys who intimidate you with their cool. I assume she insists that America as a whole shares her sexual preferences because she feels a little ooky and guilty.

But if Dowd is jumping to conclusions in assuming a universal attraction to the one-time pin-up (and that this is important, politically speaking), she’s in good company. The many former employers quoted in the Herald piece wax rhapsodic about the law student’s manly pulchritude. He had, apparently, “Excellent hands…He did a lot of hand work,” says one, “praising his ‘straight fingers, perfect nails’ and ability to ‘hold things correctly.'” Of course, it wasn’t just female photographers who doted on Brown’s physiognomy:

Tedaldi recalled several catalog shoots he did with Brown in Boston’s Leather District. He also remembers getting a lift from Brown, who in those days was driving a beat-up white Mercedes sedan, not a macho pickup truck.

But to each his own, Maureen.

Photogs Recall Scott Brown’s Ease In Front Of Camera [Boston Herald]
Bringing Sexy Back
[NYTimes]

Shorter Dowd: Who I Want To Do Should Dictate The Leader Of The Free World [Pandagon]