Leave Kristi Noem alone. She’s not responsible for balloon-gate.
Okay, admittedly, I almost choked on my coffee when the Daily Mail story slid into my newsfeed on Tuesday, and I saw the alleged photos of her husband with giant misshapen balloons shoved down his tan spandex shirt. You can never predict the news.
Count “bimbofication” as a phrase that I sincerely didn’t need to know, now or ever.
I mean, what? What a horror show. Can you imagine being married to a masculine-looking, conservative farmer and discovering that he’s getting off on wearing pink yoga pants and giant balloons while saying creepy things to strangers on the Internet? My God!
Something is seriously wrong with some people in this country. Not sure what broke their brains. But they’re broken and, unless it’s Bryon Noem, the left is generally trying to make that normal. It’s not.
Liberal men have been smearing red lipstick on their faces recently to protest Trump, so the left should probably sit this one out. They’re the party of furries, drag queen story hour, and Sam Brinton.
Of course, hypocritical Democrats, who would probably elect a man president just BECAUSE he was wearing giant balloon boobs (or just appoint him surgeon general), piled on Noem, calling her names, trashing her appearance, and so on. I don’t believe she got everything right as DHS secretary. And I wasn’t a fan of the dog story. However, the media and left crucified Noem because they apparently don’t even want illegal immigrants who commit crimes out of this country (they say they do, but that’s not how they act.) She has devoted her life to public service, and I believe she has tried to make this country a better place.
She has unquestioningly been subjected to a sexist double standard. For example, I lost track of how many times the Daily Beast called her “ICE Barbie” in “news” stories. Although some of the costumed garb got to be a bit much at times, it’s simply sexist for the media to continually label a professional woman in power a “Barbie.” Where are the women’s studies professors when you need them?
They’re hypocrites. It reminds me of how they treated Sarah Palin. Hell hath no fury like the left fixating on a beautiful Republican woman with a frontier ethos and lots of kids. They’re threats.
But when it comes to her husband? Leave her alone. She isn’t the person who shoved plastic balloons down her shirt. Although we don’t really know what she knew when (her rep gave a statement to the New York Post saying that she and her family were blindsided), I think we can all stipulate that this probably wasn’t what she signed up for. At least based on what we know now. I suppose some new salacious detail could come out that makes me change my position.
Noem met her husband when she was in high school; he was a neighboring farm boy who was friends with her brother, and she married him in her early 20s. He helped her with the family farm after her father died tragically. I’m guessing that the man whom she married was a far cry from the guy in pink yoga pants (or whatever they were.) We haven’t walked in her shoes. We don’t know how she handled all of this, when she learned about it, and what she knew. Although the potential for blackmail is legitimate, she and their daughters deserve some empathy here.
Frankly, it makes her more sympathetic. She’s been bombarded with double-standard questions about an alleged relationship with Corey Lewandowski. His unpaid employment with DHS aside (that’s bad), her husband’s alleged proclivities would make it somewhat more understandable, albeit still unfortunate, if she sought comfort elsewhere. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Who knows? Maybe they were separated inside the marriage, maintaining a friendship for the kids, assets, career, or even some human connection that only they understand. It never made sense before why her husband didn’t seem very upset about the Lewandowski rumors.
Again, I am not saying that’s good or defending it per se. But it’s context. And I have some empathy for the frailty of the human condition and the fact that relationships are wholly unknowable to those not actually in them. And if you don’t get that, you need to check your heart. And before you bring up Paul Pelosi or whatever, I never engaged in bashing him. That was wrong, too.
I feel no sympathy for Kristi’s husband. He needs mental health treatment. It almost feels like sabotage. Did he really think he wouldn’t get caught? He’s married to one of the most controversial women in the country who was bound to become a lightning rod due to the importance of the position. What a creep!
I’m tired of the snap judgments that fall so much harder on women, especially conservative women. We don’t really know what went down in Kristi’s marriage and, frankly, it’s hard to see how it’s any of our business, as weird as it all is.
Leave Kristi alone. She has enough to deal with.
